Irritated by the potholes that speckled the road near his home, Toby McCartney remembered how he had seen people fix potholes when he was in India. They used readily available plastic trash to fill in the holes and then melted it into place. The result was makeshift pothole filler.
That ingenious way of repairing roads in India inspired McCartney to come up with a way to replace crude oil-based asphalt in pavement with a mix of plastic. After successfully paving his own driveway, McCartney realized he had a clever idea about how to reuse plastic waste.
So McCartney, along with two of his friends, Gordon Reid and Nick Burnett, created MacRebur—the plucky little startup that converts plastic waste into useable plastic pellets. The company’s aim is to decrease the amount of plastic waste going into landfills while also reducing the cost of road maintenance and repair.
So far, the roadways made from plastic are stronger and longer-lasting than traditionally made ones. Best of all, they are better for the environment.
Take a look at this quick video to find out more!
This company is paving roads with recycled plastic.
Posted by Our Planet on Tuesday, April 10, 2018
What do you use that is now made from recycled materials? Did you like it? Is it as good as the original that wasn’t made from recycled materials? Tell us all about it in the comments below.
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Amazing idea!
I LOVE recycled paper note pads and journals. The paper is thicker, like a high-quality paper stock. Plus, each note card is slightly different making them unique and special.
Wondering how that affects the earth though. I love the idea of recycling like this but doesn’t some plastic leech into the earth and contaminate it’s plants/inhabitants? If not then I love this idea – genuinely interested
I thought about that too–but this has to be a better solution than just dumping it in the landfills, right?
We use a lot of reusable shopping bags made from recycled plastics. I love that the waste is staying out of landfills, and so far my bags are holding up great!
This is as wonderful to see as the park benches made from plastic caps!!
This is super exciting. I really hope its implemented globally. Just considering how much plastic we can use in a positive way 🙂
Thanks Lia, we thought it was pretty exciting too!
This does seem like a great idea as long as we are using existing plastics. We still need to focus on making less plastics because as we all know, they never go away. I love the ingenuity and there is more than enough plastic to go around for the purpose of our roads.
So, once the “plastic” road start to deteriorate, then what? Will it slowly crumble away and mix in to the soil that supports the road and we still have a plastic problem? I’d like to see the long-term effects of using plastic for roads.