Garbage, and more specifically, plastic, may pave the streets of the future. In fact, in India, it already has now.
It is difficult to exaggerate India’s garbage problem. Jairam Ramesh, the nation’s former environment minister, has said that if there were a “Nobel prize for dirt and filth,” India would win it.
Much of India’s garbage is made up of plastic—a scourge of the nation’s new consumer economy. Although the nation’s per capita consumption of plastic is low compared with that of the U.S., it’s expected to double over the next five years as India continues to develop. This poses huge environmental, social, and economic challenges.
Rajagopalan Vasudevan, a professor of chemistry at Thiagarajar College of Engineering though, sees an opportunity. Plastic, he argues, is a “gift from the gods”; it’s up to humans to use it wisely. And he’s devised a way to transform common plastic litter—not only thicker acrylics and bottles but also grocery bags and wrappers—into a partial substitute for bitumen in asphalt. This substance could be used to pave highways and roads.
In recent years his method has been gaining recognition. He’s become known as Plastic Man and travels throughout India instructing engineers how to apply it. The college holds a patent for his technique but often licenses it for free. To date, more than 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles) of plastic roads have been laid in at least 11 states.
The method allows for the consumption of an unwanted and mostly nonrecyclable resource; it results in stronger roads; and because it replaces as much as 15 percent of more expensive bitumen in the mix used to lay roads, the technology also holds the potential to lower the cost of infrastructure.It also can accommodate the multilayered wrappings often used to pack snacks such as chips and cookies. Above all, his technique is simple and easy to use.
Vasudevan’s technology is certainly innovative in its nature; and as Almitra Patel, one of India’s leading experts on garbage, noted, Vasudenan’s technology is a “win-win-win.”
To learn more about the “Plastic Man” and his ingenious method, click here.
The above content was derived from and/or originally published on: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-10/indias-plastic-man-chemist-turns-litter-into-paved-roads