The First Plastic road is made in Mexico
Over 300 million tons of Plastic produce every year but only 10% are recycled. More than 8 million tons of plastic end up in our ocean. Dow finds a new way to prevent plastic pollution from polluting our oceans to turn hard plastic into a more durable and longer-lasting road, called Plastic roads.
We are in a time of environmental crisis in which it is urgent to propose solutions and take actions to reduce the impact we are having on the world’s ecosystems.
The generation of plastic waste is one of the main pollution factors and that is why we need to spread recycling and make it custom since the use and reuse of these plastic materials helps in the reduction of garbage in our sanitary landfills and oceans.
With these environmental concerns in mind, Dow launched Plastic roads, the design, and the manufacture of modified asphalt from the use of recycled plastic material.
The first plastic road in the world is made with hard plastic and Elvaloy and is located in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, and its length is 2 km.
The plastic road project was carried out jointly with VISE, Surfax, Lasfalto, and Omnigreen and was supported by the Ministry of Communications and Transportation of Mexico.
It required almost a ton of plastic, that is, something close to 250 thousand flexible packages.
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If an amount close to one ton of plastic was used for a 2 km road, it will be interesting to calculate and think about how much plastic pollution could be avoided in landfills and oceans if this strategy is no longer implemented only in Mexico, but on a global scale. The United States, Australia, India, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, and many other countries have used plastic road technology which can include plastic waste into an asphalt mix.
On the other hand, Dow ensures that this new plastic road technology not only has a positive impact on the environment but also on the life of the roads because the materials have up to 50% higher performance compared to traditional asphalt.
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Hopefully, in more corners of the planet it will be considered to implement asphalt made with plastic, because, due to the amount used for its manufacture, the benefits could be large-scale.
Plastic Roads: Paving our way to more sustainable Future:
Video Credits: Dow
Can plastic roads help save the planet?
Video Credits: BBC YouTube
