Slashdot Mirror
Plastic Roads Sound Like a Crazy Idea, Maybe Aren't
schwit1 writes with news that the Dutch city of Rotterdam is looking at partnering with a company called VolkerWessels to test a prototype plastic road for safety and durability. "They envision pulling waste plastic out of the oceans, and then processing it into prefabricated sections of road with integrated utility channels and drainage. The composition and structure of the plastic makes it more durable than traditional asphalt, and VolkerWessels estimates that their plastic roads should last about three times as long as traditional roads." The roads are manufactured at a factory, and then hauled in a mostly finished state to where they'll end up. This could dramatically reduce the time during which drivers are inconvenienced by road construction efforts.
How will these plastic road segments hold up to the kinds of expansion and contraction roads undergo during especially hot or cold days?
Will they be have to be melted together to prevent cracks between segments for weatherproofing against rain, snow and ice? (Water expands when frozen, remember)
And how well will they stack up against some idiot driving along on a rim with no tire?
Will they be fireproof? One flaming car wreck and you've got a wall of fire that goes on for miles, spewing toxic smoke.
Unless these road pieces are chemically altered in some way, traction on plastic roads would be awful. And shards of the roads that break off under wear and tear are going to be blown out into nature, poisoning the environments they land in over time.
I'm all for cleaning out the oceans, but this seems like moving toxic, nature-insoluble trash from one environment to another. Permanently ridding ourselves of the plastic is the right path.
By that logic I should be able to improve the condition of the road by dumping a gallon of oil on it.
Except your logic is seriously flawed.
By using your own purposely confusing wording, we DO already improve the condition of roads by dumping gallons of oil on them. Have for decades.
The details you are ignorant about:
- Patching holes in asphalt roads with more asphalt is exactly what is done to improve them.
- Asphalt is indeed made from oil.
So the parents logic is sound, only your limited knowledge of the world is flawed, and trying to nix the idea based on that flawed logic combined with purposely confusing the issue by claiming asphalt is not made from oil, is the height of ignorance.