Dive Brief:
- KWS, a Netherlands-based subsidiary of VolkerWessels, has teamed with European companies Wavin and Total S.A. to further develop the PlasticRoad, as reported by Recycling Today.
- The PlasticRoad — which was first introduced in 2015 — is a concept that will recycle plastic waste and scraps into "lightweight modules with hollow interiors" that can act as roads and be filled with piping or cables.
- This new partnership brings more resources and experience to the KWS project which can help make it a reality. The company is aiming to complete a prototype by the end of 2017.
Dive Insight:
Road maintenance is an expensive part of all local government budgets and this idea has big potential for making infrastructure more sustainable in the future. The PlasticRoad is designed to be replaceable and recyclable with the goal of creating a local circular economy for the material.
The potential for using waste as building materials is also being explored through other projects. In Florida's Pasco County, researchers have been using bottom ash from combustion facilities as an aggregate in pavement with positive results so far. New York startup ByFusion is working to turn plastic waste into blocks called RePlast which can be used in construction for roads or fill for building frames.
As more cities and companies move toward "zero waste" goals they're faced with the challenge of what to do with the remaining fraction of material that can't easily be recycled. Plastic is often a large portion of this remainder so any ideas that can turn it into something useful for local infrastructure could be doubly useful to helping them reach their sustainability goals.
