Texas engineers mixed 4.5 tons of waste plastic into nearly a mile of road.
Plastic is accumulating far faster than recycling systems can process it. Over 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced worldwide each year, and only about 9% of it is recycled; the rest is landfilled, incinerated or released into the environment. According to US statistics, landfills accepted about 27 million tons of plastic waste in 2018, which is almost one-fifth of all municipal solid waste that was produced in that year. The problem with roads is quite different; however, the two issues share a common link: asphalt, which is bound together by bitumen, a fossil‑fuel derivative. The asphalt on roads in hot states such as Texas cracks and ruts in high heat. The team headed by Dr. Sahadat Hossain from UTA created a one‑lane paved strip on State Highway 205 in Rockwall, a suburb of Dallas, utilizing around 4.5 tons of recycled plastics to pave almost a mile of highway. In a Conversation article, Hossain said the plastic is cleaned, shredded into flakes and added to hot as...
