The first global road partially made with recycled plastic was inaugurated in the Mexican state of Guanajuato by a group of companies with the support of the Ministry of Communications and Transportation (SCT).
“The road connects the towns of Irapuato and Cuerámaro, and consists of 4 kilometers in which more than 1.7 tons of post-consumer plastic was used, equivalent to 425,000 flexible plastic packages”, the company Dow said.
This firm was responsible for the production of the modified asphalt along with its allies Vise, Surfax, Lasfalto and Omnigreen.
“This new technology, not only brings possible solutions to the management of plastic waste, it also allows the theoretical life of the roads to be extended up to 50% versus conventional asphalt,” Dow said in a statement.
“The advantage of using recycled plastic products is that they can be used on any type of road, not just high performance, so this can extend the life of any asphalt road,” he added.
Paula Sans, general director of Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics in Mexico, highlighted the use of plastic materials in a circular economy model, in which these can be used more than one occasion.
“Demonstrating that roads made from high-performance modified asphalts can be obtained using recycled plastic material is a step forward to develop applications based on a circular economy business model and provide a solution to the growing concern regarding waste management plastics, ”said Sans.
Dow, stated that there are plans to do more pilot tests with the use of modified asphalt, in order to apply this technology on a large scale.
San Miguel Times Newsroom with information from Forbes.com