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Upcycling Plastic Waste | Earth Wise

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People have generated 8 billion tons of plastic waste over time and less than 10% of it has been recycled.  Millions of tons of it escapes into the oceans.  Plastic piles up virtually everywhere on earth.

There are many approaches to dealing with the plastic waste problem and no one of them is a magic bullet.  Engineers at Stanford University have investigated the prospects for upcycling plastic waste for use in infrastructure like buildings and roads.

They used a mix of computer modeling, scientific research, experimental and field data to analyze the potential for using plastic waste in infrastructure.

Among their findings is that recycled glass fiber reinforced polymer composite – which is a tensile plastic commonly used in car, boat, and plane parts – is a promising material for reuse in buildings. 

Roads in which waste plastic is melted down and mixed with conventional paving materials are becoming more common around the world.  India has installed over 60,000 miles of these roads.  Studies show that roads containing waste plastic have the potential to perform better than conventional roads.  They can last longer, are more durable, can tolerate wide temperature swings, and are more resistant to water damage, cracking, and potholes.  Such roads rely less upon virgin fossil resources, which is obviously advantageous.

Upcycling plastic waste in infrastructure is attracting increasing interest because it creates value from something that is strictly a liability and may end up having regulatory advantages as societies move toward more environmentally friendly and sustainable policies.

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Can we use plastic waste to build roads, buildings, and more?

Photo, posted October 7, 2022, courtesy of the Grand Canyon National Park via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Self-Deicing Roads | Earth Wise

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Driving on snowy or icy roads can be pretty dangerous.  That is why roads are salted or coated with sand to provide traction in icy weather.  But excessive use of these substances is bad for the environment and sometimes a storm will blow in before the roads can be coated.

In a paper published in the American Chemical Society Journal ACS Omega, researchers in China describe a method of adding microcapsules filled with a chloride-free salt mixture to the asphalt with which roads are paved.  The idea is to provide the road itself with long-term snow melting capabilities.

The researchers prepared a sodium-acetate salt and combined it with a surfactant, silicon dioxide, sodium bicarbonate, and blast furnace slag, which is a waste product from power plants.  The substances were reduced to a fine powder and then coated with a polymer solution to form tiny microcapsules.  The microcapsules were then used to replace some of the standard mineral filler in asphalt.

Lab experiments showed that the special additive lowered the freezing point of water on the asphalt to -6 degrees Fahrenheit.   The researchers estimated that a 2-inch-thick layer of the anti-icing asphalt would be effective at melting snow for seven or eight years.  A real-world pilot test of the coating on a highway offramp showed that it melted snow that fell on the road whereas an uncoated road required snow removal operations.

According to the researchers, given the cost of materials used for the coating and its potential useful lifetime, it could be a practical and economic enhancement for wintertime snow and ice removal.  Maybe we’ll someday have roads that can fairly often deice themselves. 

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Keeping drivers safe with a road that can melt snow, ice on its own

Photo, posted April 8, 2007, courtesy of the Oregon Department of Transportation via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Recycling Shingles | Earth Wise

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Every year in the US, about 13 million tons of asphalt material is removed from old roofs to be replaced with new shingles.  Only about 10% of that is recycled for use in paving and various roadway projects.  The other 12 million tons of asphalt ends up in landfills where it takes a very long time to break down.

GAF, the largest roofing manufacturer in North America, has developed a shingle recycling process for which it has received three patents.  The process involves grinding torn-off shingles into a refined material which can then be introduced into the shingle manufacturing process.  The material – referred to as RAS for recycled asphalt shingles – has the potential to significantly reduce the amount of virgin asphalt needed to make new shingles.

Tests by GAF reclaimed upwards of 90% of the waste shingle material and produced new shingles containing up to 15% recycled content.  Underwriters Laboratories certified the shingles containing RAS material with regard to their safety and effectiveness.  The GAF process opens to door to creating a circular, sustainable economy for asphalt used for roofing shingles.

Roofs play an important role in the transition to a green economy.  Apart from recycling asphalt shingles, there are increasing options for solar shingles, which take the place of both traditional asphalt shingles and ordinary solar panels by integrating them into a single roofing product.  There are also so-called green roofs, which replace conventional roofing materials with a contained green space atop a building. Such roofs provide stormwater management, cooling, and an interesting aesthetic.

All aspects of buildings play important roles in our environment – even their roofs.

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5 Ways Roofers Can Celebrate Earth Day, Everyday

Photo, posted April 15, 2012, courtesy of Robert Taylor via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Strategies To Cool Off Cities | Earth Wise

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Heatwaves in cities are becoming increasingly common and increasingly intense.  The warming climate is a big factor, but it is the nature of our cities that really drives up temperatures.  Solar radiation stored throughout the day on asphalt and buildings is released slowly during the night, which generates significant heat stress.

A study carried out by a major Barcelona university and published in the journal Urban Climate looked at the effectiveness of various ways to mitigate the heating effects in cities.  In particular, the study examined the effects of the use of white roofs on buildings and the expansion of urban green areas with daily irrigation in the Barcelona metropolitan area.  It simulated various scenarios incorporating combinations of these two mitigation strategies.

The strategy with the greatest impact was a combination of the use of both white roofs and the addition of six urban parks, which is a target set by the Barcelona Urban Master Plan.  This scenario resulted in an average temperature reduction of 2.25 degrees Fahrenheit.  The maximum reduction occurs during the mid-afternoon with a reduction of 7 degrees and the combination still provides more than 3 degrees of reduction at 9 pm.  Reducing temperatures this way also results in a reduction in energy consumption, with 26% less spending on air conditioning.

The 2-pronged strategy combines the benefits of reducing the temperature at night due to more urban green areas with the reduction of daytime heat due to both the increased reflectivity of white roofs as well as the irrigation of the green areas.

The study demonstrates how modeling efforts can help urban planners to counteract the impacts of heatwaves, which are likely to increase with climate change and intensification of urbanization.

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White roofs and more green areas would mitigate the effects of heat waves in cities

Photo, posted January 16, 2011, courtesy of Sean MacEntee via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Paving With Plastic | Earth Wise

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The country of Ghana has an ambitious plan to recycle and reuse as much plastic waste as it produces each year (which is over a million tons) by 2030.  As part of this plan, they have started to pave roads in Accra, the capital city, with asphalt containing a slurry of used plastics – shredded and melted bags, bottles, and snack wraps.  Only a quarter of Ghana’s roads are currently paved, so waste plastic has many opportunities for use in paving.

Plastic roads first appeared in India two decades ago.  There are now over 60,000 miles of them in that country.  Several countries have only recently built their first plastic roads including South Africa, Vietnam, Mexico, the Philippines, and the United States.

Studies have shown that roads containing waste plastic have the potential to perform as well or better than traditional roads.  They can last longer, can tolerate wide temperature swings better, are stronger and more durable, and are more resistant to water damage, cracking, and potholes.

Ordinarily, asphalt for roads consists of 90 to 95% aggregate – typically some mixture of gravel, sand, and limestone – and 5 to 10% bitumen, which is a black gooey substance extracted from crude oil that binds the aggregate together.  Plastic-enhanced roads replace varying amounts of the bitumen (often as little as 4-10%, but sometimes much more), with plastic that is actually a stronger binding agent.

Plastic roads reduce the amount of bitumen in roads, thereby reducing carbon emissions.  The plastics are not heated enough to release gases and the roads do not appear to shed microplastics.  Plastic roads will not solve the world’s plastic waste problem, but they can help by diverting lots of plastic from landfills.

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How Paving with Plastic Could Make a Dent in the Global Waste Problem

Photo, posted June 4, 2010, courtesy of Sustainable Initiatives Fund Trust via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Making Roads From Ocean Plastic

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Like many other places around the world, India has a big problem with plastic waste.  Its 1.3 billion people each use an average of 24 pounds of plastic per year and much of it ends up in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean.

Fishermen in India’s southern state of Kerala have taken on the battle against plastic waste in the ocean by launching a campaign called Suchitwa Sagaram, or Clean Sea, in which they are collecting the plastic and bringing it back to shore.

In the first 10 months of the program, fisherman have removed 25 tons of plastic from the Arabian Sea.  Once the plastic waste reaches shore, it is fed into a plastic shredding machine.  As is the case for many of India’s plastic recycling schemes, the shredded plastic from the sea is converted into material that is used for road surfacing.

There are more than 20,000 miles of plastic roads in India, mostly in rural areas.  In fact, more than half the roads in the southern state of Tamil Nadu are plastic.  Such roads have become popular because they are more resilient to India’s searing heat.  The melting point of plastic roads is around 150 degrees Fahrenheit as compared to 122 degrees for conventional roads.

Roads made from recycled plastic are also cheaper than ones using conventional plastic additives.  A mile of plastic road uses the equivalent of a million and a half plastic bags and saves about a ton and a half of asphalt.  Overall, plastic roads are about 8% cheaper than conventional roads and create jobs for people in the fishing communities.

India’s plastic roads are a promising way to fight the problem of ocean plastic pollution.

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These Indian fishermen take plastic out of the sea and use it to build roads

Photo, posted April 25, 2016, courtesy of Bo Eide via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Sand Mining And The Environment

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In discussions of the environment, we don’t hear much about sand mining.  But sand mining is the world’s largest mining endeavor, responsible for 85% of all mineral extraction.  Sand and gravel are mined on a huge scale around the world.  The UN estimates that the total exceeds 40 billion tons a year.  Most of this activity is unregulated and unmeasured, and much of it is corrupt and environmentally destructive.

Concrete is the predominant use for sand.  Every ton of cement requires six to seven tons of sand and gravel in order to make concrete.  But sand also makes up 90% of asphalt on roads and it is used for land reclamation in places like Singapore.  Sand is also widely used in industries such as glass manufacturing and fracking.

There are different sorts of sand.  Desert sand is mostly useless for making concrete because its grains are too rounded by erosion and don’t bind well in the concrete.   Marine sand is not great for concrete either because it has to be washed clean of corrosive salts.

As a result, salt miners mostly get sand from pits on land and dredged up from lakes and riverbeds.  Dredging massive quantities of sand from rivers and lakes drastically alters river flow, erodes riverbanks, dries up tributaries, lowers water tables, and trashes wetlands and fisheries.  In many countries, this even goes on in national parks where officials turn a blind eye to the activity.  India is the world’s second-largest sand mining country (after China) and widespread illegal extraction occurs throughout the country run by highly organized and even violent “sand mafias.”

Sand mining is a huge problem and, to date, is one that is pretty much off of most people’s radar.

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The Hidden Environmental Toll of Mining the World’s Sand

Photo, posted June 3, 2017, courtesy of Andrey Talalov via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Cloudbursts And New York City

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Cloudbursts are intense rainstorms that drop enormous amounts of water over a short period of time.  Climate change is expected to make cloudbursts occur more frequently.  Cities around the world are looking for better ways to cope with weather phenomena like cloudbursts. 

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Making Cities Cooler

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Cities are particularly miserable during heatwaves.   With lots of concrete and asphalt surfaces, they soak up lots of heat and re-radiate it.  Lots of tall buildings block cooling breezes.  Factor in car exhaust and heat from air conditioners and it all adds up to the urban heat island effect.  Cities can be several degrees warmer during the day and as much as 20 degrees warmer at night.  All of this extra heat is not just a comfort issue, it is a serious health problem.

[Read more…] about Making Cities Cooler

Cooling Cities With White Roofs

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The phenomenon of urban heat islands has been well known since the 19th century.  The materials from which city buildings and roads are made reflect much less solar radiation and absorb more of it than the vegetation they have replaced.  The absorbed energy is then radiated in the form of heat into the surrounding air making cities warmer.

[Read more…] about Cooling Cities With White Roofs

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