Rotterdam city council has agreed to consider the usage of a new type of road surface being considered as a green alternative to asphalt.
According to the construction firm VolkerWessels, the surface would be made entirely from recycled plastic, and would be able to withstand greater extremes (-40 to 80 degrees C) with less maintenance. The plastic is also supposed to be able to be paved in a matter of weeks rather than the usual months with a lifetime three times that of asphalt.
Asphalt is currently contributing 1.6m tons of CO2 emissions a year globally – 2% of all road transport emissions.
Rolf Mars, the director of VolkerWessels’ roads subdivision, KWS Infra, said:
“Plastic offers all kinds of advantages compared to current road construction, both in laying the roads and maintenance.”
This recycled plastic road idea will be thoroughly road tested (ha) before rolled out on a greater scale.