This professor has a brilliant solution to plastic waste and potholes

[Anorion]

It's a simple solution to two pressing problems at once.
Plastic waste pollutes the seas and land fills.
Molten plastic behaves similarly to the tar used to mix with gravel and make roads.
The roads built like this do not get potholes!

*i.imgur.com/ptHBreJ.jpg

This is 73 year old Dr Rajagopalan Vasudevan, who came up with the solution.

The man who paves India's roads with old plastic

 

[Desmond]

But plastic also has lower melting point than tar. Which kind of makes it counter productive in the summer.

 

[Anorion]

the plastic is melded with molten bitumen (tar)
so instead of 10 tons of bitumen for a km of road, it is like 90 tons of bitumen and 1 ton of waste plastic

 

[Desmond]

That makes sense. I wonder why this is not already a widespread technique for building roads.

 

[rhitwick]

What about CO emiting while melting plastic?
Are we sure that no CO emisson would be there when plastic is mixed with bitumen?

If you've seen road making with bitumen, you might know how much pollution the 'only' bitument approach spreads already.

 

[Desmond]

I think some CO2/CO emissions is alright I think when considering the amount of plastic you can get rid off. Also, it is more of a one time thing when constructing the road.

 

[Anorion]

What about CO emiting while melting plastic?
Are we sure that no CO emisson would be there when plastic is mixed with bitumen?

If you've seen road making with bitumen, you might know how much pollution the 'only' bitument approach spreads already.

We were discussing the same thing in office. The plastic is first "softened" with warmth, and melted at a low temperature, which ensures that the fumes are not released
A potential problem is doing it at scale, using the specified temperatures
Then, the bitumen used normally is not pure bitumen, but is also cut with adulterants, which also leads to the problems of potholes in the first place

According to the professor, one of the biggest problems is actually sourcing the plastic, but if implemented, it could ensure that there is little to no plastic in landfills

 

[rhitwick]

From the same article,

Dr Noreen Thomas, a polymer science expert at Loughborough University, said the process appeared to be an imaginative solution, but cautioned that plastic waste is often a complex mix of materials not all of which would work well with Dr Vasudevan’s operations. Some might burn up in the heat, and others, she said, might prove unsatisfactorily soft as a road surface.

“There is always a risk when heating or burning mixed plastic waste in an open environment when the composition of the plastic waste is unknown,” she said. “It is important to find more applications for mixed plastic waste but even more important to ensure that more environmental pollution is not created in doing so.”

 

[Desmond]

From the same article,

In this case then you will need special polymers which is opposite of what is expected.