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posted by cmn32480 on Saturday July 11 2015, @09:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the what-happens-when-you-drink-and-drive dept.

The Netherlands could become the first country to pave its streets with plastic bottles after Rotterdam city council said it was considering piloting a new type of road surface touted by its creators as a greener alternative to asphalt.

The construction firm VolkerWessels unveiled plans on Friday for a surface made entirely from recycled plastic, which it said required less maintenance than asphalt and could withstand greater extremes of temperature– between -40C and 80C. Roads could be laid in a matter of weeks rather than months and last about three times as long, it claimed.
...
The plastic roads are lighter, reducing the load on the ground, and hollow, making it easier to install cables and utility pipelines below the surface.

Sections can be prefabricated in a factory and transported to where they are needed, reducing on-site construction, while the shorter construction time and low maintenance will mean less congestion caused by roadworks. Lighter materials can also be transported more efficiently.

Can plastic really last that long, exposed to loads and UV? I've had the plastic cases of electronics literally crumble to dust because they were sitting next to sunny windows...


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday July 11 2015, @06:27PM

    by frojack (1554) on Saturday July 11 2015, @06:27PM (#207955) Journal

    Seriously, they make a big point of it weighing less!

    Since when is the weight of the road surface an issue? Maybe on bridges, but if you are engineering your bridges that close to the margins you are doing it wrong.

    In short, every single claim in TFS seems like bullshit to me.

    • Build roads in weeks? Oh sure. No road bed prep? No Engineering studies? No earth works?
    • Hollow for cables? Can't think of a dumber place for cables than right down the traffic lanes of a busy roadway.
    • Build off site, and transport to destination, with no ground prep (remember those short construction times promised)?
    • Low maintenance? Seriously? Build one first. Then make that claim. The first punctured gas tank fire burns your road down.
    • Traction? We don't need no stinkin traction
    • Plastic in the landfill leaching out and poisoning the groundwater is bad. So lets string it all over the city. Way better.
    • And the above mentioned floods when all your hollow road pop to the surface and float away with your pipes and cables

    Recycled plastic is by definition a dogs's breakfast of various plastics. Quality control will make it unfeasible to use recycle, and specification creep will demand a custom engineered, very expensive plastic, manufactured from fresh oil stocks.

    Meanwhile recycled asphalt paving is the number one recycled product by tonnage in the US, with 99% of all asphalt being recycled as roads are rebuilt and resurfaced. Its been that way since 1993.

    Just because you can lay a model electric car track on the living room rug in 10 minutes doesn't mean it works in real life.

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