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Road Makers Turn To Recycled Plastic For Tougher Surfaces (economist.com)
Recycled plastic is already used to make some products, such as guttering and sewage pipes. Now attention is turning to roads. From a report: On September 11th in Zwolle, a town in the Netherlands, a 30-metre bicycle track made from 70% recycled plastic and the rest from polypropylene was opened [Warning: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. It will be used to test a product called PlasticRoad, which is being developed by two Dutch firms -- KWS, a road builder, and Wavin, a firm that makes plastic piping -- in partnership with Total, a French oil-and-gas firm. PlasticRoad is prefabricated in a factory as modular sections. The sections are then transported to the site and laid end to end on a suitable foundation, such as sand. Because these sections are hollow, internal channels can be incorporated into them for drainage, along with conduits for services such as gas and electricity. For the Zwolle project, sections that were 2.4 metres long and 3 metres wide were used. These were fitted with sensors to measure things such as temperature, flexing and the flow of water through the drainage channels. A second pilot cycleway is being built in the nearby town of Giethoorn.
If all goes well, the inventors hope to develop the idea and make the sections entirely from recycled plastic. Paths, car parks and railway platforms could follow. Eventually, sections for use as actual roads are planned. These could contain sensors for traffic monitoring. In time, the circuits in the plastic roads might extend to assisting autonomous vehicles and recharging electric cars wirelessly. Prefabricated plastic roads should last two-to-three times longer than conventional roads and cost less, the companies claim, mainly because construction times would be reduced by almost two-thirds. Anti-slip surfaces could be incorporated, too, including crushed stones which are traditionally used to dress road surfaces. The sections, when replaced, can also be recycled. But engineers will be watching to see how the track stands up to wear and tear and if the hollow structure causes resonance, which would make such a road unduly noisy.
If all goes well, the inventors hope to develop the idea and make the sections entirely from recycled plastic. Paths, car parks and railway platforms could follow. Eventually, sections for use as actual roads are planned. These could contain sensors for traffic monitoring. In time, the circuits in the plastic roads might extend to assisting autonomous vehicles and recharging electric cars wirelessly. Prefabricated plastic roads should last two-to-three times longer than conventional roads and cost less, the companies claim, mainly because construction times would be reduced by almost two-thirds. Anti-slip surfaces could be incorporated, too, including crushed stones which are traditionally used to dress road surfaces. The sections, when replaced, can also be recycled. But engineers will be watching to see how the track stands up to wear and tear and if the hollow structure causes resonance, which would make such a road unduly noisy.
Sometimes there is no other option.
Where I live they tried adding mulched rubber tires to asphalt, this resulted in road surfaces that are less durable (more potholes) and the practice was abandoned.
How is this different?
This will DEFINITELY help with the 'mcroplastics in the foodchain' problem.
the bitcoin catnip of vehicles.
This has been done with rubber (not plastic) on our estate in Milton Keynes, UK. When it's done properly it's basically un-noticeable and so far has worn extremely well. I can't imagine doing this with plastic as that's basically a bit stupid given the microplastics 'news' currently in the worlds focus
However there is food for thought - this stuff basically wears down as dust, and even if it does it slowly there'll be a lot granted, but dust is a lot smaller than your evil microbead problem, so much so that it's likely not a problem anymore at that scale.
Certainly brake pad dust would be more of an issue - how many tonnes of that gets put into the air? Some compounds used are *not* nice. and this certainly gets worn down faster, and on a far greater scale than a plastic road.
Maybe the chemicals got into your head ... NONE of that shit should happen.
It is blatantly obvious to a four year old child, that if you ruin that which gives you food and shelter and warmth and life, you won't have food and shelter and warmth and life anymore.
It's brutally obvious that if you take food out of the fridge, and never put it back, and throw trash on the ground, and never recycle it, you will starve and die sooner or later.
Yet, on a corporate scale, that is somehow deemed perfectly acceptable. Even if it is literal stealing from the ground that actually belongs to all of us, or dumping poison in the water that we literally need to live.
That is NOT a good business sense. A good business is a sustainable one. A non-sustainable business is a dead business.
Unless they pour it wrong.
For those who can't see past the paywall, there are some pretty good images of the road sections here.
Check your premises.
The things of real consequence here are the cost savings and how well the road can stand up to heavy loads. If it doesn't perform well in those two areas then it will get limited use. It might be exactly what Zwolle wants, Hell it might even be great for all of the Netherlands but for widespread use, one must consider global applications.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I don't know that it's common knowledge, but asphalt is actually highly recyclable. Granted, the sources are generally industry-based, but even studies don't put the rate at lower than 90%. Granted as well that not all roads are strictly asphalt.
But it seems strange to highlight the fact that one could recycle sections as though other road materials aren't able to be recycled.
A 30-metres long bicycle track made in recycled plastic....
Wait, 30 metres?
Do you want to have flawed data? Because that's how you get flawed data.
Make it at least 3 kilometres long, otherwise all your data will be coming from basically the same exact spot.
#DeleteFacebook
Wouldn't worn down plastic end up in gutters, and from there into watercourses... and finally the sea?
"The Plasticman"
A lone venturer comes across a crashed plane containing a body wearing the uniform of the USPS (Uniformed Salsa Plastic Service) with a bag full of plastic water bottles.
He travels down a plastic road, weathered by erosion and sunlight, which chokes him to death before he can reach the town about to be destroyed by plastic beetles. So they die.
Everyone is happy in their plastic ruins.
The End
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
They eventually want to make roads out of this product if it proves tough enough. Why not try and get driveways and some parking lots made from this instead? Then it doesn't have to put up with the heavy loads a busy road would put on it but still replace asphalt. Then as the product improves it can begin to replace roads.
Step 1: Pave the world's roads in plastic because we don't have enough plastic out there.
Step 2: Wear down the plastic roads by driving vehicles over them to create lots of little plastic particles.
Step 3: Let the rain carry these little particles into water courses and then into the sea.
Honestly the stupidest idea I've heard in a long time. This needs to be stopped *now* before this idiocy spreads. I can only imagine that the "inventors" are only concerned about making a quick buck by saving on raw material costs. If recycling really is a goal, this is a totally misguided solution. Even sending the plastic to landfill would be a better option as it's less likely to cause pollution.
This is potentially a reasonable application for bikeways and paths, but it's a non-starter for roads. Their claim that adding plastic increases durability is simply nonsense. Road surfaces already contain quite a bit of plastic. Various polymers are mixed into the bitumen in a very controlled way to achieve a wide variety of different grades suitable for different duties, with different road bases, and different environmental conditions.
On a footpath where this stuff doesn't matter as much you can make the surface out of pretty much anything. On a bike path the road base is far more important than the final surfacing. However on an actual road with an actual vehicle load making blanket statements about the mixture and makeup of the materials is simply showing you have no idea what goes into making a road.
... by decades, and decades.
took a break did you and then when you thought no one was looking out came all your lies again. When will you learn?