Roads made from waste plastic looks like an incredible idea

Plastic is both a boon and a bane to the mankind; but with the amount of plastic waste growing every minute the consequences could be very hazardous. There are initiatives being taken around the world to replace asphalt to build roads entirely from plastic. These roads would employ existing plastic waste gathered from various sources; including the one that's been dumped in the ocean.

I first stumbled upon this initiative in Jamshedpur (India) where Jamshedpur Utility and Services Company aka #-Link-Snipped-# built a road made using waste plastic. JUSCO is a sister company of Tata Steel and has built a ~15km road using waste plastic. The road requires no maintenance for first five years. A kilometer long road that's 4m wide saves about 50K INR!

The latest advancement comes from Netherlands company 'VolkerWessels' that's proposing to build Crazy paving: Rotterdam to consider trialling plastic roads | Netherlands | The Guardian. These roads will be able to sustain wider temperature ranges from -40 to 80 degree Celsius. The company says that its innovation allows for faster construction of the road and lesser maintenance costs.

I'm curious to hear from our fellow Civil engineers about the plastic roads, their feasibility and why aren't we already thinking in this direction for our highways?