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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: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 11 2015, @09:54PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 11 2015, @09:54PM (#208003) Journal

    You should stop one day at a grade crossing. Examine the road surface within about 30 feet of the steel tracks. Macadam, blacktop, and other pliable surfaces generally show a LOT of wear at the grade crossings. Concrete seems to hide that wear better, until it finally suddenly fails, and you find several independent slabs floating on each side of the crossing. To some extent, I think this is due to the train's weight on the supporting roadbed as it crosses. To a greater extent, heavy trucks crossing the tracks hammer that section of roadway. Automotive traffic also hammers that road surface, but I believe the cars only cause a fraction of the damage that trains and trucks do.

    I watched a road crew doing something unusual a few years ago - they tore up the road surface, and put down huge rubber mats on either side fo the tracks. Rubber, or some kind of semi-rigid plastic, something black, anyway. At the time, I expected those mats to last for a long, long time. But, apparently, it was only a temporary fix, because within the year, they tore up those mats and resurfaced the roadway again.

    I guess that I should point out that I live in a temperate region, where we can expect hard freezes. That's about the only factor I can think of that might contribute to that wear, that some other Soylentils might not see.

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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday July 14 2015, @11:00PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday July 14 2015, @11:00PM (#209131)

    It's probably mainly because of the train's weight: it flexes the rails and the roadbed underneath; asphalt is slightly pliable, but not that much, especially after it gets old, so it fails there faster than other places.