A South African company is taking away plastic milk bottles for recycling and later use it to repave roads. The co is killing two birds with a single stone. One, they are tacking the land fill problem in the rainbow nation and secondly they are providing better roads for the citizens.
Every year, potholes cost South Africans some $3.4 billion to repair their vehicles and treat injuries sustained. This is according to information provided by South African Road Federation.
Shisalanga Construction Company used recycled plastic bottles to repave a road in KwaZulu-Natal province which is located in the East Coast.
Further in Durban the company has also paved 400 meters of road using recycled plastic bottles. The asphalt the company used was made up of 40,000 plastic bottles.
The company estimates that for every one tonne of asphalt used, a total of 118 to 128 2 litre plastic bottles are used.
How are they doing it?
A recycling plant in South Africa turns the bottles into pellets which are heated at 190 degrees Celsius to make them dissolve and then they are mixed with additives.
The asphalt’s bitumen binder is replaced by 6% with the plastic bottles. The company has indicated that their compound is water resistant and more durable as compared to the ordinary asphalt. The new asphalt can withstand temperatures as high as 70 digress Celsius and as low as – 22 degree Celsius.
The company approximates that the roads made up of recycled bottles will last longer than the ordinary roads whose lifespan is 20 years.
In South Africa, 70% of the plastic bottles are collected from landfills. The company is creating a new use for waste plastic bottles by transforming them into roads.
South Africa is not the first country to lay plastic road. India started doing that some 17 years ago. Shisalanga spent 5 years researching more about the new technology before embarking on it.
Roads is just one of the possible solutions for plastic menace. Other countries are turning plastics into clothing, bricks and fuel.
