These Indian Cities Are Putting Plastic Waste To Good Use, Are Using It To Construct Roads

Back in 2015, when the Indian government made it mandatory to incorporate plastic waste in the construction of roads, we all knew that it will kind of revolutionise.

But now, things are turning quickly in our favour. Cities like Indore, Chennai and Pune are already using plastic waste while constructing roads.

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As resilient as this may seem, it is true that we're already aboard a campaign to annihilate plastic from the system.

Chennai claims to have used 1,600 tonnes of plastic already to construct 1,035.23 kilometres length of roads. Pune has already tired up with Rudra Environmental Solution (India) Ltd and gave them a contract of building 12 trail plastic roads across the city.

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As for Indore, the city is already recycling half of its plastic waste on daily basis, where 30% is being used for roads. So far, more than 500 km of roads have been constructed.

The process isn't as complicated as it seems. All the plastic gets collected and sent to a place where it is shredded into fine pieces, making it convenient to use. The pieces are then mixed into a mixture of bituminous concrete or tar. Both the elements are heated at high temperature before mixing.

And opposite to popular belief, using plastic is cheaper too. "A mere 10-20 paise is spent per kilo of shredded plastic, whereas Rs. 20 is spent on one kilo of tar,¡± says Mr Warsi. Therefore, if the plastic waste is properly channelised in road development across the country, the civic bodies can save up to Rs. 2500 per tonne.

The original idea was initiated by Rajagopalan Vasudevan, a professor from Madurai¡¯s Thiagarajar College of Engineering.