It’s good to blend asphalt with this nasty plastic. Roads are known to not be exposed to any sort of high mechanical loads, so no risk of constantly adding micro plastic to the environment.
A lot of micro plastics come from vehicle tires… So adding plastic to the roads would probably double that. Yuck.
Asphalt is recyclable, you can tear it up, drop it in a mixer and after it heats up you can pour it back out.
ADDING PLASTIC BREAKS THIS PROPERTY. DO NOT ADD PLASTIC TO ASPHALT.
Are you certain of that? There are many kinds of plastic with various plasticity and heat properties.
Well, there are many kinds of plastic, technically, this could be something new. But some places have been adding plastic to asphalt for a while now, it certainly is cheaper in the short/medium term. And who knows, maybe this has different properties from all the existing systems, but I doubt it. I think this is just reporting research findings on the existing systems.
Currently, where I’ve seen this done, when the road finally does need repair, you have a whole lot of heavy waste to deal with. I don’t have exact numbers on hand for what the financial or environmental cost comparisons are, but I think anyone could infer that reusing 100% of the existing material, and adding an extra 20% in order to repave a road is probably going to be a more optimal option when compared to replacing it all and then dealing with a huge amount of waste.
If they can’t reuse it 100%, then it shouldn’t be considered, obviously. If it adds more microplastic to the environment, then it’s bad, obviously. But we have a shitload of plastic waste and if we can find some reusable way to put it to use, that would be preferred.
…and create a perfect device to disseminate more microplastics as the bond breaks down.
Do you know what happens to your tires when they go from new with full tread to smooth with no tread? Adding some plastic to the road will add very little and may actually reduce some pollution since road-tire interactions can convert some of those plastics/rubbers.
Ah, yes… the old “acting responsibly here won’t completely solve the problem, so we might as well act irresponsibly” argument.
Explain why it is irresponsible. Did you read what I wrote?
Exactly what I came here to say.
The plastic is already here and unfortunately we haven’t figured out a good way to get rid of it. So instead of polluting our oceans and landfills, why not use it for better roads? At least until we figure out a better solution.
K…
Yeah, but if local councils fix roads less often, how do they convince state governments they need the same amount of money (or more) than they got last year? Pockets don’t fill themselves!
Whole lot of false dichotomy going on in this thread.
Yes, tires already produce microplastics but you also don’t have to use processes that produce more microplastics by mixing them into a road just because you have big accumulated stores of waste plastics as potential building materials.
You can just say they are end of life and develop a reasonable storage or disposal method that does not reintroduce them into the environment as this could.
That isn’t pie in the sky thinking either, there are numerous reactions and processes that allow you to do waste-to-energy with or even high intensity photo-degredation that is capable of producing syngas or even industrial grade hydrogen from this as a feedstock. With secondary scrubbers you can recapture the carbon and other waste products for sequestration.
Yeah wouldn’t want to pollute that carcinogenic, lethal mixture of compounds in asphalt.
The ‘quiet’ highways in Arizona use ground up tires in their asphalt mix. Doesn’t hold up to freezing conditions tho.
