People driving on a 250 metre long section of the old Princes Highway in Engadine may be travelling on the answer to what we are going to do with the avalanche of plastic that is fast filling our landfills. This week that road section was resurfaced with what to the eye of motorists looks like the conventional bitumen mix that we use on blacktops.
In fact that short length of road disposed on 176,000 plastic bags, 55,500 glass bottles and toner from 3960 printer cartridges - all mixed with asphalt to form a road surface which last sixty-five percent longer that the previous bitumen mix. The boffins who created this idea claim that it delivers a better heavy traffic tread and costs only marginally more than the old mix used for past decades.
The timing of this innovation is fortuitous. We used to export much of our plastic waste to China but that country no longer takes such imports. That puts our household recycling industry at risk and leaves little other option than landfill disposal. Plastiphalt - as this road surface is named - is the answer we have dreamed of. The ability to convert plastic waste into a useful product and recycle it here in Australia.
Recycled plastic already has some uses here but the industry scale is not enough to put a dent in the mass being sorted through the household recycling bin system. Road resurfacing is the big industry that can make the difference and it introduces economy of scale. Once the amount being processed becomes large the price for the finished product falls precipitously. We could also be looking at export opportunities.
The Australian companies that have developed this method claim it is an improved process on a similar venture in India where 10,000 kilometres of road has been surfaced with plastic infused bitumen. The Australian operation is technically complex and it prevents the formation of microbeads which pollute waterways and poison marine life. The water runoff from Plastiphalt is free of that problem.
The fact that plastic waste can now be refined and turned into pellets that reinforce bitumen as a road surface opens the door to inventive minds. What other uses can it be turned to ? Plastic was initially formed from a raw material and this process simply turns it into another newer raw material. The genius that is the human mind has measured progress over the centuries by creating new ideas and these recycled pellets await their turn to mesh with society's need.
Fame and fortune are the rewards waiting for the minds that successfully turn what we term " trash " into " treasure " !
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