Recycle Roadway Plastic

Posted: August 26th, 2021

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Recycle Roadway Plastic

Although the use of plastic in road construction is not a new technological invention, recent studies on the same have demonstrated the importance of this kind of venture. Therefore, the use of plastic roads entails the gathering of plastic carrying bags and disposable PET cups from dumpsites (Ranathunga 1). These plastic materials are then mixed with hot bitumen to facilitate melting into an oily coat by-product that is usually used in road surfaces as tar. Nonetheless, the melting of plastics into a more useful by-product has considerably helped in reducing the threat of plastic materials to the environment because of its non-biodegradability nature. Hence, the conversion of plastic waste into a useful form of road construction has continued to enhance the life of roads in Sri Lanka and other countries globally.

Precisely, the recent study of the utilization of plastic for road construction has shown that 30 % of the Sri Lanka imports features in polythene materials totaling to 500,000 metric tons (Ranathunga 3).Such a large importation of plastic materials has exacerbated the endorsement of plastic for recycling purposes that have offered road construction a different look. Therefore, 70% of the dumped plastic materials are put into recycling as compared to the remaining percentage, which is hazardously dumped into the marine environment, hence hurting the lives of aquatic organisms (Ranathunga 3). According to research by Surendaran, the recent construction of plastic roads has proven to have a better usability performance in comparison with the use of the conventionally pure bitumen roads since it is a mixture of both bitumen and waste plastic. Therefore, the building of plastic roads consists of the following advantages.

Equally, the roads possess a high resistance towards rainy water and instances of water stagnation. Simply, this is because there is an increased level of binding and bonding of the mixture encompassing bitumen and molten plastic waste.  Next, road surfaces do not translate into incidences of radiations like UV, thus signifying that the strength of used materials is reinforced to 100% (Surendran 1145). Further, the cost of constructing plastic roads is significantly cut down to almost a half because the process of recycling plastic waste is rather inexpensive. Likewise, the costs of maintaining such roads are equally reduced to nearly zero since a majority of these roads type portray extended levels of durability. Besides, research byAmit and Bharsakale has demonstrated that the application of plastics as a means of building roads has contributed to the economic development of Sri Lanka (148). For example, a majority of the youths have ventured into the mass collection of plastic wastes, hence impacting the employment of unskilled labor (Amit and Bharsakale 148) positively. As a result, therefore, these youths have created a means of generating incomes.

Construction of roads in Sri Lanka was initially dependent on asphalt concrete that utilized a lot of bitumen material that is considered highly expensive. Therefore, the use of molten plastic waste has occasioned by the reduction in the content of the used barrels of bitumen in the mixture of asphalt concrete (Ranathunga 3). Consequently, the replacing content levels of plastic materials have otherwise enhanced the quality of the mix, leading to a better-increased performance of these roads. Due to the high demonstrated usability performance of plastic roads in Sri Lanka, civil engineers in UK, Canada, Netherlands, Philippines, and India have also embarked on road surfacing using such endorsements on plastic waste. As an example, the Indian Congress has recommended the use of plastic waste that has seen the construction of more than 3,000 km of highways utilizing the bitumen plastic road surface technology (Ranathunga 3).

Subsequently, a lot of literature reviews in India have focused on the cost-benefit analysis of comparing the construction of normal asphalt roads to the waste plastic ones.A more significant part of the studies has conceptually described the benefits of the asphalt mixture of bitumen together with plastic waste (Ranathunga 4). For example, the cost of gathering, segregation, and process of the plastic waste materials are estimated at $2 per kg in India, whereas the cost of bitumen per kg is $25. However, all roads in India measure up a width of 3.75 m, and yet a kilometer of a road network requires 1 ton of bitumen (Ranathunga 4). Thus, it implies that a kilometer of the road would need $25,000. While assuming that the optimum percentage of plastic waste as per the test outcomes of the literature reviewed is approximated at 10% (by % weight of the used bitumen); therefore, the total measure of used bitumen would be only 9 tons (Ranathunga 4). It implies that the total amount of the used plastic waste would be the 1-ton cost of bitumen for 9 tons at $22,500(Ranathunga 4). Hence, the total saving costs from the utilization of plastic waste in the bitumen would be $2,500 per 10 km of road.

In summary, the usability of plastic roads has portrayed enhanced resistance to cracking attached to surface friction with the wheels of vehicles due to the road features in the high content of biding materials. Such binding materials have significantly improved the oxidation resistance, leading to extended aging of the roads (Ranathunga 4). Also, the building of plastic roads as a mixture of bitumen coupled with polythene materials seems resistant to rutting because the properties of molten plastic contain high viscosity and softening level. Furthermore, the qualities of increased binder film thickness and softening texture tend to lower the tire noise, hence lowering the instances of pavement maintenance (Ranathunga 4). In brief, the application of plastic roads has impacted effectively on environmental sustainability since a lot of hazardous waste is recycled into useful by-products to be utilized in the construction of eco-friendly road surfaces.

Works Cited

Amit, Gawande, and Saurabh T. Bharsakale. “Utilization of Waste Plastic in Asphalting of Roads.” Science Reviews on Chemical Communication, vol. 2, no. 2, 2012, pp. 147-157. 

Ranathunga, Sharmal. “Study on Use of Waste Plastic in Road Construction.” Department of Civil Engineering, 2018, pp. 1-32, www.academia.edu/39974762/Study_on_Use_of_Waste_Plastic_in_Road_Construction. Accessed 23 April 2020.

Surendaran, Kalpana. “Utilization of Waste Plastics in Bituminous Roads – A Review.” International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, vol. 119, no. 17, 2018, pp. 1143-1156.