Could Modular Plastic Roads Be the Future of Our Motorways?
There are numerous benefits to the proposed plastic roads, but are they better than our current asphalt and concrete highways?
On the road the the future, we’re all looking for a more sustainable and more financially viable way to build normal everyday items. In this case, VolkerWessels KWS has proposed a new way of producing roads that has the potential to revolutionize the way infrastructure works, and clean up a lot of the world’s plastic pollution.
Instead of dumping those plastic water bottles into the landfill, we can potentially use them to craft a stronger and more resilient motorway. Imagine a world where you’d never have to deal with another pothole ever again. Or a heated road that never ices over. That’s what the folks behind “PlasticRoad” are claiming.
We’re still skeptical – call it cautiously optimistic – that a plastic motorway could ever truly be implemented. It has a lot going for it, however. By crafting this modular system, whole sections of the road can be replaced or repaired in no time flat, certainly far simpler and easier than the heavy equipment and dozens of operators needed to patch a hole in asphalt.
By making the road hollow and the road surface porous, they can make a road that would almost never flood, reducing the flood damage to nearby homes and businesses, while also reducing hydroplaning incidents on the roadway itself.
Then again, one of the reasons asphalt works so well is that it is an incredibly stable material that promotes traction between itself and your vehicle’s tires. For the purposes of a plastic road, tire technology may have to change to cooperate with a material that can be worn smooth over years of driving.
Considering the way roads heave and buckle in areas where the ground freezes and thaws frequently, there could also be potential danger in two sections of road separating from each other. It’s got plusses and minuses, to be sure. It’s an interesting plan that we’d like to know more about.
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