Plastic Waste for Strengthening Roads

 

Context :

Govt makes use of plastic waste mandatory on service roads a must    /  TNN  /  07 Feb 2023

 

Extract :

 

In its bid to increase the use of plastic waste in road construction, the road transport and highways ministry has made the use of the waste material in hot mix bituminous wearing coat or top layer mandatory on all service and slip roads throughout the National Highway (NH) network in the country.

In a circular issued to all NH owning agencies on Monday, the ministry said this “shall be made applicable for all such NH and centrally sponsored road works for which bids are yet to be received”.

The current length of the NH network in the country is around 1.41 lakh km.

Till now the use of plastic waste in the hot mix bituminous wearing coat and periodic renewal was mandatory only on service roads along NHs within 50 km periphery of urban area having population more than five lakh.

The use of waste plastic in bituminous mix reduces the need for bitumen by around 15% and it also increases the strength and performance of roads.

The roads with plastic have longer life than the normal bituminous roads.

 

 

MY  TAKE  :

 

Ø  Dear Gadkariji : your dream come true ?............ [ 18 Sept 2021 ]

 Extract :

Ø  Number of Plastic bottles produced world-wide in 2021……………583.3 Billion

Ø  Plastic waste generated by India in 2019………………………………… .9.46 Million Tons

Ø  Total Plastic waste in 2021 could be ……………………………………….. 10 million tons

Ø  Assuming 30 % consist of PET bottles                             =       3 million tons

Ø  Approx weight of a 1 Litre PET bottles                             =     20  gms

Ø  Which translates as ( 5 bottle=100 gms / 50 bottle = 1kg / 50,000 bottles = 1000 Kg = 1 Ton )

Ø  Hence, if all of these 3 million tons of plastic bottles were to be used ( recycled ) for producing Platio Bricks :

#   3 million tons = 3,000,000 tons = 3,000,000,000 Kg

#   For ease of calculating, if we take use of 10 Kg / sq meter , we can get :

     300 Million sq meter of Platio Bricks

Ø  Let us assume a highway with a width of 20 Meter

Ø  So we get > 300 Million sq meter divided by 20 Meter = 15 Million Meter length of highway = 15,000 Km of highways constructed using plastic waste

Ø  Now, if 1 panel ( of 1 sq meter ) can generate 20-30 watts of solar power , then 300 million sq meter can produce … 300 million x 20 watts = 600 million watts = 600 Mega Watts of power !

===================================================

Dear Shri Gadkariji,

 

If ,

Ø  Data furnished by news report , and

Ø  My calculations / assumptions

 are believable, then you might want to invite Platio to set up manufacturing operations in India

Of course, in the first instance, you may want to ask Dr R Vasudevanji

(deaneca@tce.edu ) :

 

“ You have already perfected the technology to manufacture PLASTONE , using shredded plastic waste.

  Can you further improve upon it to overlay a glass-encased Solar Panel on top of PLASTONE ? “  

 

With Regards,

 

Hemen Parekh

hcp@RecruitGuru.com  /  09 Feb 2023