Now, highways too go green

NEW DELHI: It is now time for Indian roads to turn environment-friendly. With the use of waste plastic for road construction particularly in bitumen, India has already made a beginning in deploying this technology on a 1,000 km stretch in Bangalore.

“Besides putting plastic waste to good use, this technology also doubles the life of the roads,” said a scientist from Central Road Research Institute (CRRI).

The plastic-waste technology is of two kinds — dry and wet. In dry, waste plastic is shredded and added to bitumen. In wet, it is powdered. The disintegrated and cleaner plastic form is then added to hot bitumen at the hot-mix plant, which is then transported to the laying site.

While KK Polyflex has patented the dry technology for 5 years for their Bangalore project, CRRI has patented the wet technology. A 6 km stretch in Gurgaon has been identified for the implementation of the wet technology and CRRI is in talks with PWD to get a site in Delhi for use of this technology.

KK Polyflex has also signed an MoU with Hindustan Prefab to diversify the use of the technology in the mixes.

The cost over-run of this modified bitumen is by Rs 3-5 per kg. Even though the cost of this new technology is slightly higher, it increases the durability of the roads, and hence cuts down on frequent maintenance costs which have to be incurred without the use of this modified bitumen.

There will be no problem of plastic melting in summers because the bitumen is added with additives and rubber polymer, which effectively raises the temperature at which bitumen softens, the official said.