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.
Pothole in tarmac? Fill it with more tarmac.
Pothole in plastic? Pour molten plastic in? Buy a new section of road?
I've read the assertion that plastic roads sound like a crazy idea elsewhere, too. I don't think this ideas is crazy at all. Why would it be? We currently pave roads with asphalt which we get from crude oil. It makes sense to me that if we process the crude (or some other oil or source of hydrocarbons; say, recycled plastic) we can make something that works similarly well or even better.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Accidents with chemical spills, fire.. Sounds like they will need to have prefab parts on hand to replace after these types of accidents, unless it's a special type of plastic.
What will the surface texture be? Need to make sure the friction is good enough in wet conditions.
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.
Anyone see what just happened in California? Can't imagine the practical road damage and amazing environmental damage of tons of plastic on fire.
Unless you're the company selling the idea in the first place. What it sounds like to me is expensive and pointless. Isn't asphalt reusable? Scoop it up, reheat it, pave with it again? By all means have someone start cleaning up the oceans and recycling all the plastic waste out there, but not this way.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
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.
Finally a car analogy I can understand.
Sounds like a great idea. Lets hope the details will add up.
TFA:
The things that aren't addressed by the available information are safety and cost.
Nor is winter & studded tyres mentioned. Studded tyres eat through asphalt & the stones in it quite quickly. How about this plastic?
Perhaps this is only for warm climates. Rotterdam seems to not average sub-zero temperatures even in February, so I guess studded tyres are not used there? Any duch person to confirm?
Imagine a vehicle fire. A plastic situation road creates fuel right there! If a round is fired at a suspect on a chase, and this chase ends up with an accident, I can't see how a plastic road can help matters. Does it?
The idea of pulling plastic out of the oceans is senseless to anyone who gives the idea a minute of thought. Do these people have any idea how big the ocean is and how small the particles of plastic can be?
The assumption is that the plastic from the oceans can be successfully recycled to the right quality product.
Not to sound anti-environmental but these issues are often far more complex.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Not unlike the plastic rush of he 40's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Even if we assume that they have magically found a way to get and recycle the plastic garbage in a few bazillion cubic meters of ocean, they'll still have to do better with the end result than experiments so far. The Morrison Bridge in Portland OR has a skid resistant polymer deck that is already coming apart after just a couple years. I wouldn't write this idea off a priori but there major problems to overcome.
I am trying to think of a type of plastic that can handle millions of cars and tires, yet doesn't wear down - or - if it does wear down, maintains traction and grip.
As a motorcyclist, the idea of this road makes no sense, and is a bit scary. But if they can figure out the traction thing, let's give it a try.
Shamelessly lifted from the comments on the iEEE article, is a link to India using plastic as binder in asphalt.
This seems like a much more practical step towards using lots of plastic in roads, and the article hints that it may help prevent potholes which would mean the road would be usable longer. They've already been testing it on real roads for a year.
I just can't see how the equivalent of potholes in a pure plastic road are anything but disaster - a ton of water gathering in the conduits, and any fragmentation would lead to very sharp shards on the road, or large areas just failing wholesale.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Argh, copy/paste fail. Let me try that again:
First off, another poster noted plastic is usually significantly less toxic than asphalt. I mean, you probably consume food and beverages from plastic containers all of the time--how would you feel about drinking from an asphalt cup? There might be environmental dangers, but this would be due to the mechanical properties of the plastic (does it break apart into particles or shards?), not the chemical properties.
Which brings us to my next point: "plastic" is not some generic, monolithic thing, which is why so many plastic products will try to use another term to avoid the connotations of cheapness or flimsiness: "resin", "polymer", brand names or genericized brand names (acrylic, nylon, Kevlar, lucite) and, my personal favorite, calling attention to the fiber used to strengthen the plastic (fiberglass, "carbon fiber").
I'm not a plastics chemical engineer, but I have noticed that softer plastics seem to resist shredding or dusting pretty well. It may well be possible to chemically transform unsorted waste plastic into a suitable material, particularly if some kind of fiber or rock aggregate material is added. I'm not going to say this will definitely work, but it's certainly a lot more complicated than you're making it out to be. Plastic is not a catch-all term for cheap stuff that breaks when you use it. Airplanes and boats are made of plastic. Semiautomatic pistols are made of plastic. $3000 bicycles are made out of plastic. Let's keep an open mind here.
I think this is a great idea, but we really need to make to lay the foundation for the next generation of computer controlled vehicles.
Do I know what that is? Nope, but I think it would be reasonable for computer systems on my car to be informed immediately if there is a problem ahead, whether it be damage to road detected by sensors in the plastic road itself or simply congestion to inform my vehicle to take an alternate route.
Perhap road sensors could detect the provide feedback to rooba-plows as well and make noises to scare deer off of country roads well in advance of cars :)
The space for cables is a good idea but I wouldn't put pipes in there, at least in colder climates as they would freeze.
I think this would be pretty good for parking lots and sidewalks to start with since you don't seem to need to lay down a thick gravel subsurface.
But I thought all of our roads were going to be glass electricity generating ones!
Here in Arizona we are laying a lot of rubber roads: more durable, quieter, and no more mountains of old tires. It's like driving on carpet. But in accidents, they can catch fire.
That way the just go collect the plastic and make more of themselves until the ocean is clean.
Of course we may run into the Slylandro problem.
http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Probe
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
This is where it's at: http://www.solarroadways.com/i...
A better headline would be, "Are plastic roads the future?"
Sig: I stole this sig.
One time when I visited Rotterdam (wonderful people and a great city, btw) I saw some street construction near the hotel I stayed in. The street was paved with bricks. Instead of using a jackhammer to get through the street's surface, the workers just dug up the bricks, did their work, smoothed out the surface and re-installed the bricks. When they were done, it looked like they were never there. So it seems more like a matter of replacing those bricks with plastic ones, as bricks are already being used for road surfaces.
They are also a little more dangerous for heavy trucks. A friend drives a 16-wheel dump truck with pushers and a strongarm, and apparently if he has to panic-stop the rubberized-asphalt roads are more prone to surface melting and turning to liquid under the tires, effectively making the truck hydroplane in otherwise dry conditions. Nothing like fifteen tons of uncontrollable truck sliding at freeway speeds toward a stupid motorist that cut-off the truck...
I've also noticed they're not nearly as durable as the hard concrete surfaces they replace. There are stretches on most of the oldest coated roads like the I-17 around the Durango Curve and on the US-60 where it diverges Eastbound from the I-10 where the coating has been scraped off in patches, and there are other sections where the coating has split above the control joints in the underlying concrete, making the road noisy again.
I won't deny they're beautifully quiet when new, but they just don't age very well.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
That's a shame. Our roads here in the Phoenix-area seem to be serviced on a schedule. About once a decade on the major roads they grind the surface off and lay a new one down so that they never get horribly bad. Probably every 20-30 years or so on the neighborhood streets that see less traffic.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Think what you will of the people employed to maintain the asphalt roads and highways you use every day but they make quite a bit of money, especially considering the level of education required for that kind of work. Lower the total number of jobs required for road construction and maintenance and suddenly the businesses those formerly well paid construction workers patronized will feel the pain.
Don't worry, like all great ideas that will cost less and employ fewer people, this will cost more and employ more people.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The way roads are done in the U.S.:
1.) Award contract to the lowest bidder.
2.) Lowest bidder was the lowest bidder because they plan on using substandard materials.
3.) Resulting road falls apart in 4-5 years (or less).
4.) Go to 1.
There is no desire or advantage to build roads that don't need to be rebuilt very few years. The Free Market(TM) and your (and my) tax dollars at work. Everybody wins (road contractors, car dealers, repair shops, etc.) but the people who have to drive on the crappy roads.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
This is ridiculous.
First, the expansion/contraction of plastics is generally MUCH much higher than concrete/pavement.
Second, the "prefab road sections" are absurd; nobody builds roads like this already (of any material) because they would be ruinously expensive (not because of the raw material costs), nothing has come close to the level of durability needed to handle 50-ton trucks repeatedly for decades, and extremely hard to deploy.
Third, the overwhelming majority of plastic in the ocean is 0.1mm or smaller (http://theconversation.com/in-the-ocean-the-most-harmful-plastic-is-too-small-to-see-35336) - the cost/magnitude of scale to sieve this from the oceans is mind-boggling.
Seriously, Dutch, I love you - but that's a mind-blowingly dumb idea.
-Styopa
As this is an article about Dutch roads. Most highways here have a top layer of asphalt; this is a mix of materials which include: rubber, plastics, stone, zand, and a tar like binding agent called bitumen.
It is designed to make highways be able to drain water, have a rough structure for grip on tires and to reduce noise pollution, and handle the temperature and humidity changes of the Dutch climate.
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeer_Open_Asfalt
There are some pictures of the top layers of a Dutch highway. And lots of text in Dutch, but no link to an english page.
As I mention that asphalt layer is only the top 7 cm of a highway, below it are:
- 3 layers of 6 cm each of asphalt/concrete slabs
- 30 cm of unbounded foundation
- 70 cm of sand
Below this a foundation of Styrofoam blocks may be used on very soft ground to reduce sagging.
Seriously, to give a big of traction, cover it up with rubber.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.c...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
If plastics which would otherwise go into a landfill or are already contaminating the environment can be used, if it has similar/better performance characteristics to traditional road materials and if its is a similar/cheaper in price then of course. But there are a lot of ifs in there.
Yes, placing all utilities under the road instead of through the road (as it is today) is the right thing to do.
Only in those areas with a frost depth of zero inches: Parts of far South California, New Mexico, and Florida.
frost map
Unless by utilities you are excluding sewer and water and including power and cable (which primarily run overhead in most locations).
most people have NO idea what it takes to drive a truck. its not as simple as a car. they need more room to brake, and many motorists dont respect that. At least in NY
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
... Give me back my caps!
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It's not a prototype surface, it's a new technique that's being widely implemented. The I-10, the I-17, and most of the state routes through this urban area are paved in the stuff or will be shortly. If one wants to take a freeway to get across town there's no way to avoid it.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
This will be great!
My studded snow tires will get much better grip on plastic and ice, than rock and ice in the winter. And they'll wear less!
Then the sections of road will float away.
Nothing like fifteen tons of uncontrollable truck sliding at freeway speeds toward a stupid motorist that cut-off the truck...
I am cool with this. Darwinism in action. My only concern is for the truck driver. :)
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Make highways out of silly putty. resilient enough to drive over, but self healing for potholes etc. Make them deep enough and no worries about abandoned cars.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Here in Arizona we are laying a lot of rubber roads: more durable, quieter, and no more mountains of old tires. It's like driving on carpet. But in accidents, they can catch fire.
then you can use concrete tires which should last a long time.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Unfortunately if a fifteen-ton dump truck gets into an accident on the freeway during heavy traffic, there will be many more people impacted both literally and due to the effects on traffic patterns than just the truck driver and the car that caused the wreck.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Your friend is full of it. Most rubberized asphalt concrete in the western US uses 20% rubber, and that is mostly in the form of rubber granules mixed in. These come directly from recycled tires. So: 1) they are tire rubber - if they were melting then so would the car/truck ties. 2) they are not continuous on the surface, so there would be no continuous layer to slide on. 3) It is impossible for most people to tell if the surface has rubber or not - generally you need a core sample and a microscope. For terminal blends and plastic modifiers, you have to do a chemical analysis of the recovered binder.
Also, rubberized AC has mostly the same noise characteristics as conventional AC. You might be thinking about open-graded asphalt concrete, which is significantly quieter...
-Jeremy
maybe it would be safer to just rear-end the other guy?
If you could not properly stop in a straight line you either did not pay attention or you did not maintain the safety distance. I would rather have a car on car collision with dV of 20 mph than a truck on car collision. Even at slow speeds the truck will pile drive through your car.
Hell, most motorists don't even allow enough braking distance when driving their giant SUVs.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere