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I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about “plastic roads”. Many countries, desperate to make use of the gargantuan flow of waste plastic, and desperate to avoid it goi
by andrewstuart 4y ago
I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about “plastic roads”.
Many countries, desperate to make use of the gargantuan flow of waste plastic, and desperate to avoid it going into landfill, are putting the waste plastic into roads.
This is called “recycling”.
Sounds like a great idea until you realize that cars and trucks drive on the roads and grind them into dust - dust containing microplastics.
The microplastic dust will go into air, waterways, rivers, oceans, food, plants animals and people.
All this is because the environmentalists have decided that “keeping plastics out of landfill” is more important than anything.
Plastic roads are an environmental disaster in an epic scale being created in the name of “recycling”.
The worst thing is that for some reason it’s not obvious that this is a disastrous idea, and all around the world people are breathlessly talking up plastic roads like its a solution to the plastic waste problem.
“In 2015, the Indian government made it mandatory for plastic waste to be used in constructing roads near large cities of more than 500,000 people”
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210302-could-plastic-roads-make-for-a-smoother-ride https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210302-could-plastic-ro...
Mandated madness. The safest place for the fire hydrant of waste plastic is in landfill, not “recycled” into microplastic dust.
Would you like a plastic road outside your house, or outside your kids school?
- malandrew 4y agoWhat if you use the plastic as a foundation or filler covered by a layer of asphalt?just curious if it’s possible to elongate the plastic tire interface and eliminate pulverization
- zdragnar 4y agoYeah, the dust coming off of roads is from the vulcanized rubber tires, not so much the asphalt itself.
- atombender 4y agoAsphalt is in fact a substantial source of pollutants: https://news.yale.edu/2020/09/02/asphalt-adds-air-pollution-especially-hot-sunny-days https://news.yale.edu/2020/09/02/asphalt-adds-air-pollution-....
- plorg 4y agoThis is the process described in the article. (Edit: the article even directly addresses this, with the suggestion, you can believe it or not, that this is intended to prevent microplastics generated from abrasion) I suppose you would still have to worry about, for example, what happens when you replace the road and recycle that asphalt - the asphalt with plastic admixture gets mixed into the whole batch and remelted. Assuming you kept track of which are the plastic roads you could still use the recycled asphalt (with more plastic waste?) as the base and use a layer of new asphalt on top, etc. It may be that recycling your plastic is fully useless or even harmful, but there are municipalities where plastic in the recycled waste stream does get reprocessed into new products, and as one of the sibling comments notes, burying waste in a landfill isn't the obviously better solution either. It's also fine to have ire for the people who push plastic recycling for consumers without ensuring plastic waste gets into a stream where it's responsibly reprocessed. I'm sure there are some less-than-circumspect environmentalists who are responsible for this, but there are plenty of others, including politicians and industrialists who push recycling as a way to avoid reducing plastic consumption or to use still more single-use plastic items.
- andrewstuart 4y ago>> burying waste in a landfill isn't the obviously better solution either. Plastics into landfill is better because the toxicity/microplastics are constrained to the immediate ecosystem of the landfill, rather than being distributed everywhere.
- burkaman 4y agoI don't think you're wrong, but when considering the impacts of a plastic road outside my house I think I'd be worried about, in order: 1. Getting hit by a car 2. Health impacts of car exhaust 3. Microplastics coming off the cars themselves (https://www.wired.com/story/microplastic-san-francisco-bay/ https://www.wired.com/story/microplastic-san-francisco-bay/) 4. Microplastics from the road Also, while it certainly wouldn't surprise me if plastic roads produce more microplastics than plastic landfills, I wouldn't take it as given. Landfills aren't frozen in time, stuff degrades and gets blown around by wind, and I have no idea how the process of making a road affects the plastics and their capacity to degrade.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago> 2. Health impacts of car exhaust There really aren't any. The amount of pollution from cars rounds to zero. Industrial pollution meanwhile continues unchecked.
- CorrectHorseBat 4y agoYou sure about that?
- woodruffw 4y agoThe amount of pollution from individual private cars is nominal, but the amount of pollution from cars en masse (especially in concentrated road structures like highways) is substantial[1]. It becomes even more substantial when you mix in commercial car (read: diesel) traffic[2]. [1]: https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/south-bronx-traffic-congestion-worsens-raising-health-and-safety-concerns https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news... [2]: https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/true-diesel-trucks-nyc-apr22.pdf https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/true-diesel-t...
- ThunderSizzle 4y agoThe GP talked about outside his house, not highways or business districts. If you live on an interstate, and don't want to, the best course of action is to move.
- layer8 4y agoI wonder if that’s worse than tires being worn down by roads?
- missedthecue 4y agoAre microplastics proven to be dangerous yet, or is all the fear and panic still based on vibes? Based on a brief inventory of scientific journals, it looks like the answer is no at best and inconclusive at worst.
- woodruffw 4y ago> Would you like a plastic road outside your house, or outside your kids school? I'd like no road at all, please. A street (and a bike lane) will suffice.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Riseed 4y agoWhat's the difference between a road and a street?
- wetpaws 4y agoOne is for cars, another is for people.
- imtringued 4y agohttps://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/3/1/whats-a-stroad-and-why-does-it-matter https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/3/1/whats-a-stroad-...
- kart23 4y agoYou realize what polyester is right? All those fleeces made out of recycled bottles and the polyester clothing that every single kid wears are all shedding microplastics constantly into the environment. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2264585-microplastics-found-across-the-arctic-may-be-fibres-from-laundry https://www.newscientist.com/article/2264585-microplastics-f... > Microplastics were present in all samples except one, with a count of approximately 40 microplastic particles per cubic metre of seawater on average. They found that synthetic fibres made up 92 per cent of the microplastic pollution in these samples, and 73 per cent of this is polyester.
- ericd 4y agoSeriously, I see people wringing their hands over solid plastic toys for their kids while clothing them in polyester fleece.
- coffeebeqn 4y agoBeing aware that everything is plastic is kind of horrifying. Stuffed animals? Plastic. Car seats? Plastic. Diapers? Plastic. carpeting? Sleeping bags? Backpacks? Curtains? Yeah it’s all 100% plastics unless you’re buying very high end
- TeMPOraL 4y agoYou can't win. It's hard to get non-plastic clothing even in rich countries. That vendors will deceive or lie about it doesn't help.
- ericd 4y agoIt’s not that hard to get cotton/wool clothing, though wool is definitely pricier than spun plastic. I’ve had much more trouble with furniture, though, there’s a much larger price premium there for whatever reason.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago> I’ve had much more trouble with furniture, though, there’s a much larger price premium there for whatever reason. Logistics, probably. Wooden furniture is heavy. Much heavier than furniture made from modern, plastic-infused materials. This weight increase generates additional costs at every step between the manufacturer and your living room. (I guess traditional materials might also be less suitable for making flat-packed furniture that can be assembled by the buyer.)
- sifar 4y agoTo add to that most parts of India get extremely hot. Imagine these plastic roads getting baked in 40C-45C sun for months.
- JumpCrisscross 4y agoTo add to that, asphalt is virtually 100% recyclable. (Concrete, less so, but still better than plastic.)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]