Plastic roads

The world is beginning to notice just how many plastic bottles are thrown away every single day. In fact, the world is slowly drowning in a sea of plastic bottles, most of which cannot be recycled in a conventional way. So it is always nice to hear of innovative and novel ways in which we, as the population of the planet, can change this. For example, have you heard about the Scottish firm that will take disused plastic bottles and bags and transform them into making better, longer lasting roads?

No?

Well let us explain. These so called plastic roads are becoming of interest to councils up and down the country as they are kinder to the environment and sees the plastic components ground up into pellets and mixed with the usual asphalt to create stronger, more durable road surfaces that, it is claimed, are better at preventing the perennial problem of large, vehicle damaging, pot holes in the road.

Appropriately enough the company behind the scheme is called MacRebur Plastics Road Company. They claim that the 0.5 percent of the road mixture is made up of these pellets. So far Dumfries and Galloway, Cumbria and Enfield have tested the plastic roads and each of these councils has said they expect to see significant cost savings over the traditional bitumen mixture applied to the roads.

At present the cost of making the new material is slightly higher than traditional bitumen but the company expects the cost to come down as more and more councils eventually change over to ‘plastic roads’.