Company Proposes Plastic Roads Made From Prefab Pieces

Roads as we have come to know them can be quite a hassle to maintain, and if it becomes disused, then it’s really rather hard to get rid of.

A company called VolkerWessels (from where else but the Netherlands) is proposing a revolutionary idea – roads made out of plastic pieces that can be mass-produced.

The idea is a bit far fetched, even if it is pretty cool: they’d like to use plastic that’s floating in the oceans, which they’d gather, process then use for these roads.

But first off what are the advantages as explained by the promoters? Well, these prefab plastic roads would be easy to install and dismantle, they’d require less maintenance and could even be better at withstanding extreme temperatures.

Additionally, since asphalt is apparently responsible for 1.6 million tons of CO2 emissions per year, or around 2 percent of all road transport emissions, it would be a greener way to go, especially if it would incentivize the cleaning up of the oceans of plastics.

If it does become a reality, the first city you’re going to see it in will be Rotterdam as that’s where it’s being pitched. And it just might get the go-ahead, according to The Guardinan, which quotes Jaap Peters of the city council’s engineering bureau.

He said they are “very positive towards the developments around PlasticRoad. Rotterdam is a city that is open to experiments and innovative adaptations in practice. We have a ‘street lab’ available where innovations like this can be tested.”

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