Mexico is the latest country to pave roads with recycled plastic. The road was opened for use November 13 in the state of Guanajuato. The road is 2.5 miles long and used 1.7 tons of recycled plastic, according to Dow Plastics Technology Mexico.
Located in the central state of Mexico, the road connects Cuerámaro and Irapuato. This area is home to companies like General Motors, Ford and General Mills.
According to Paula Sans, Dow Mexico’s director of packaging and specialty plastics, “The advantage of using recycled plastic products is that they can be used on all types of highways, not only in high-performance products, which can extend the life span of any paved road.”
The project is a joint effort by Dow, Vise Construction, Lasfalto, Omnigree plastics recycler and Surfax engineering-construction. Sans said that Dow plans to do more testing of this concept, with the hope that it can apply to larger scale construction projects.
“Demonstrating that highways made from high-performance modified asphalts using recycled plastic material can be accomplished is a step forward to develop applications based on a circular economy business model — to provide a solution to the growing concern regarding the handling of plastic waste,” said Sans.
Plastic roads have also been introduced in India, Los Angeles and South Africa. It’s been a growing solution to deal with the increasing threat of plastic waste.
Source: https://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/mexico-is-the-latest-country-to-pave-roads-with-plastic/
