Plastic highways: a revolution in road construction
Recycled plastic has many areas of application. One of them is the creation of road surfaces. Trillions of tons of asphalt are used annually for the construction of new highways. The of substitution bitumen, one of the main components in the asphalt mix, for recycled plastic will improve the quality of road surface along with addressing the problem of environmental pollution.
Such highways, or as they are called “roads of the future”, are already being constructed in the Netherlands and Denmark. The project of applying this method in road construction in Turkmenistan was presented by Habib Charyev, a student of the University of Engineering and Technology of Turkmenistan named after Oghuz Khan.
Laying such roads is easier and faster. The construction period will be reduced to a few weeks.
- If ordinary roads made of asphalt serve 15 years, then recycled plastic roads begin to deteriorate after 60 years. They are wear-resistant, do not deform under the pressure of heavy vehicles, flexible, as well as withstand temperature rises and drops”, Habib said.
Plastic roads are offered for the construction in the form of plates to be laid on compacted sand so that there are empty spaces inside them for the cable, pipes, rainwater chutes. In addition, the construction does not require the purchase of special equipment.
- The quality of plastic motorways is several times higher than asphalt roads. It is not a matter of making all roads of plastic. The goal is to cover the most remote areas, create the necessary rural infrastructure”, the student emphasized.
A large amount of consumables is required to create a network of plastic roads. For example, Dutch companies have already begun to collect plastic waste from the ocean, additionally addressing the problem of environmental protection.
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