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Rubbish roads: Nepal explores paving with plastic (www.japantimes.co.jp)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

3 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Pokhara, Nepal –

Cars speeding along a smooth, black-colored street in Nepal's Pokhara are also driving over heaps of discarded plastic, transformed into an ingredient in road construction.

Nepal's urban areas generate about 5,000 tonnes of solid waste per day, according to the World Bank, of which 13% is plastic waste dumped in landfills.

While high-value plastics, like bottles, are absorbed by the recycling industry, low-value plastics — such as multilayered packaging — pose a significant challenge because they don't fit into a single recycling category.

For a group of young Nepali entrepreneurs, the vast accumulation of this low-value plastic waste presented an opportunity.

"A plastic road can use even low-value plastics."

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Wont this just liberate all that plastic as microplastics over time? Cars already generate a lot of microplastics via their tyres, but this seems like it will make it a lot worse ...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

From the article:

The plastic road method, however, first coats the aggregates with shredded plastic before adding bitumen.

"This method reduces the need for fresh raw materials, lowers costs, prevents water infiltration and increases road lifespan," Bastola said.

So it isn't a final coat, but still it's bad.

low-value plastics — such as multilayered packaging

Why they not banned this shit?

Anyway, best method for today? Burn it with extreme fumes filtration?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

I would think so, but conformation of this will be dependent on the researchers around the globe who as I type, are trialling such resurfacing ideas and methods. I would imagine any excessive particulate matter would be released by wear on the surfacing, whatever that might be ?

There are already several recognised diseases which are solely down to tyre and brake wear alone such as the well documented 'London or City Cough' here in the UK.

But hey..What could possibly go wrong?

https://www.mrc-tox.cam.ac.uk/news/tracing-toxic-tyre-dust-pollution-air-assess-human-exposure