Presumably VolkerWessels has a special variety of plastic in mind that is grippy in the wet, or some kind of texture that can be applied to make recycled plastic more gripful.
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According to a report from The Guardian, the Rotterdam city council has announced that it is wanting to find alternatives for the asphalt roads.
VolkerWessels, the Dutch group of companies behind the PlasticRoad concept, said the use of plastic would be opening the door for innovations such as power generation, quiet road surfaces, heated roads and modular construction. Having worked for publications such as The Santiago Times and The Conversation, he now writes for Gizmag from Melbourne, excited by tech and all forms of innovation, the city’s freaky weather and curried egg sandwiches. There are also options for accommodating equipment, such as, traffic loops sensors, measuring equipment, and connections for light poles underneath the road surface. “Roads can be built in weeks instead of months”.
They can also be hollowed out which in turn allows for cables and pipes to run through them.
If all goes well, there’s no reason why the PlasticRoad design can’t be used elsewhere in Rotterdam and beyond. Plastic roads are more durable than tarmac roads, lasting up to three times longer than your standard road surface, thus requiring less maintenance and city costs. If this project materialises and makes it to the mainstream road construction business, it will deal with most of the problems associated with asphalt roads. First up, it is claimed the road could better withstand extreme temperatures, as low as -40° C (-40° F) and as high as 80° C (176° F). Asphalt is to blame for 1.6 million tons of Carbon dioxide that stream into the atmosphere every year.
But we’ve already seen hints of how it can work.
Plastic roads can surely cut down on both aforementioned forms of pollution. Bottles and wrappers are reportedly hauled to collection centers, shredded, and mixed with asphalt.
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Not only is it possible to construct these plastic roads on a large scale, it is nearly irresponsible NOT to do so when considering its environmental benefits.
