How would you feel about plastic roads?  This new way to build roads will be completely made from recycled plastic which is great for the environment. Currently there is a huge amount of plastic waste that is polluting our oceans. Wouldn’t it be better if we were reusing the plastic in a constructive way?

Who has come up with the construction of plastic roads? VolkerWessels who are a Dutch construction company have come up with amazing way to construct roads more efficiently. VolkerWessels wants to reuse the plastic which is continually thrown into our oceans and landfills.  Due to their productive idea, the Netherlands has granted them a location of which they can test the plastic road. VolkerWessel are going to be starting off by constructing a bicycle path which could take around three years. If this goes to plan they can start to think about the construction of roads.

How will the plastic roads be constructed? Sections of the road are to be manufactured in a factory and later assembled whilst at the construction site. Almost Lego like! Doing it this way means that light poles and traffic sensors can be constructed into the road first before it leaves the factory. The new design of the plastic road also leaves a vast amount of room for pipes and cables. VolkerWessels says that they hope to recycle the plastic road once it has been worn out over time and make another road.

How beneficial is a plastic road in comparison to an asphalt road? According to VolkerWessels, they say the plastic road should last around 50 years which is much longer than asphalt roads. Therefore the plastic road will require less maintenance and this means less traffic jams due to road works. The plastic roads will be less impacted on by corrosion compared to asphalt roads. The road will survive a low of -40 degrees Celsius and as high as 80 degrees Celsius. Asphalt is also increasingly bad for our environment as this gives off 1.6 million tonnes of CO2 that goes into our atmosphere every year.

Could this potentially solve the worlds problem of plastic waste?

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