Road construction company KWS Infra, which is a subsidiary of VolkerWessels (Netherlands), is preparing to implement a project to create the world's first highways made from recycled plastic - PlasticRoad.
Plastic roads are planned to be assembled on site, like a designer, from separate blocks that will be hollow: they will place infrastructure elements such as cables and pipelines. The authors of the project believe that this approach will improve the quality of the roads (because the blocks are created at the factory, errors at their installation sites are excluded), as well as simplify the production and repair of the roads themselves and work on other infrastructure components (there will be no need to shift asphalt to replace pipes, etc.).
Created plastic roads can be laid on any soil (even on sands and swamps) and withstand a wide temperature range: from -40 to +80 degrees Celsius. The environmental benefits are also significant: plastic for the production of such roads is planned to be collected from the oceans, such roads will not emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, unlike asphalt ones (they are responsible for 2% of all road transport CO 2 emissions in the world ) .
The implementation of the PlasticRoad plastic highway project will take place in one of the largest cities in the Netherlands - Rotterdam (urban population is about 1.2 million people). The first road is planned to be built within 3 years.
See also anekdotig:
- Video: " Plastic bottles and ocean pollution ".