Road ways made of Plastic waste - Truth or Not ?
As you all might be aware that the biggest challenge of this century is been the disposal/ replacement of plastic & how to utilize the plastic waste in eco friendly way.
Plastic is amongst the biggest thread for recycling & it had lead to many problem to living species on earth.
But now the revolution has begun to resolve the disposal of plastic waste in the best eco friendly manner & one man
Photograph: Kamala Thiagarajan/KT
Mr Dr Rajagopalan Vasudevan aged around 73, dean and professor of chemistry at the the Thiagarajar College of Engineering in the South Indian city of Madurai (TN) is the master mind behind this concept.
Basically named as The Plastic Man of India, has been honoured with the 4th highest civilian award of India - Padma Shri, for his marvelous achievement in reusing the plastic waste in a very unexpected & useful way.
To understand the process as to how the plastic waste gets involved in the road way making can be seen below :-
A] Material Required :-
1) Aggregate - Stone dust & lime as filler [10 mm, 20 mm].
2) Bitumen - 60/70/80/100 grade.
3) Waste Plastic - It is required in shredded form.(shredded means plastic reduces to small
size or chopped down to small size).
B] Steps involved in the making of plastic road ways:-
1) Plastic waste( below 70microns like bags, cups, bottle etc) made from PE, PP & PS are cut
down to size between 2.3 mm to 4.7 mm.
This is achieved with the help of shredding machine.
2) The aggregate mix (ashplat) is then heated upto 170 deg & then brought to the mixinf
chamber.
(Amount of waste plastic to be added is around 8% that of Bitumen)
3) Now the bitumen is to be heated up to 165 deg in order to haver a good bonding & to
prevent weak bonding. ( temperature control is very important)
4) At the mixing chamber the waste plastic is to be added. Over here it gets coated
uniformly over the aggregate giving an oily look.
5) The plastic waste coated aggregate is then mixed with hot bitumen & the result we get is
used directly for the construction of the roads.
used directly for the construction of the roads.
When using plastic as a binder, we’re reducing the quantity of bitumen that is normally utilized for road laying by 6-8%
A regular road requires 10 tonnes of bitumen for each kilometre. A plastic road however, requires only nine tonnes of bitumen and one tonne of waste plastic for coating. So, for every km, the plastic roads save as much as one tonne of bitumen.
Advantages of the Waste Plastic Bitumen Road ways are as below :-
1) Stronger road.
2) NO effect of radiation like UV Rays.
3) Increased bonding.
4) Better resistance towards water stagnation & rain water.
5) NO potholes.
6) Cost of road construction is decreases.
7) Maintenance cost comes down to almost nil.
8) Disposal of plastic waste will no longer be a problem.
In addition to above it also has provided benefits to the government in the following manner :-
1) It has brought the solution for the century old problem of waste plastic disposal & has created environmental benefits.
2) It has solved the biggest challenge of the Municipal solid waste management.
3) Parrallely it has also lead to employment generation in this segment.
4) Over all it has helped in the national economy to some extend.
There are also few of the disadvantages but when compared with the problem we are currently facing for the disposal of plastic waste they are very small.
You would glared to know that till date around 26000km of road has been made from the waste plastic bitumen mixture & they are working extremely fine.
2) Excessive plastic is no longer a problem for Jamshedpur. Thanks to the work of
the Jamshedpur Utility and Services Company (JUSCO), which is a subsidiary company
of Tata Steel. This city is the first in Eastern India that uses plastic to make roads.
3) The BBMP( Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) has used plastic on around
600km of road including many throughfares & arterial road.
4) Mumbai
5) Chennai
6) Pune
7) Indore and many other cities have started using the same ideology.
Reference links:-
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