Paving the Way
In 2018 alone there was almost 36,000 tons of plastic produced in the United States alone, of that 3000 tons were recycled and 27000 tons went to the landfill. Almost inevitably that plastic that goes to the landfill ends up in our rivers, our lakes, and our oceans. It is in the air we breathe and the water we drink it is poison and even though almost every expert will tell you that using plastic is bad for you and the wrong kind of exposure can cause cancer and get you seriously ill, we will not do anything about it. We choose to ignore it and hope it will one day just magically fix itself, the rivers and oceans will become magickly free of this toxin, and the world will be a better place. Unfortunately, the truth is, plastic is not going anywhere, people refuse to see it or see its harms not only to us but to every living being on this planet. I honestly do not know how to fix that. I wish I did. We do our part and do our best not to buy single-use plastics, not use plastic garbage bags or the little produce plastic bags in the grocery store but frankly, that’s hardly going to male any kind of significant change or affect the overall pollution factor in our country and the world. So what can we do?
In 2001 Rajagopalan Vasudevan first developed the plastic road, which was made up of plastic waste and an asphalt mix. In the Netherlands in the cities of Zwolle and Giethoorn there are two bicycle paths installed made purely from waste plastics. Yet in another county, there is a road built completely of waste products which include plastic and glass bottles. While it is yet completely unclear of the long-term downside to these roads as can the plastic end up in the earth as more microplastics. Yet the plastic sitting in the landfill will certainly end up harming us much more than a hypothetical theory that these plastics could somehow harm us later.
Here is the vision. This plastic only needs a minimal amount of sorting. It only has to be treated in a certain way to make pellets. The plastic from the containers as well as plastic bags has to be melted at a certain temperature to convert into these plastic pellets. There are currently 600 coal plants in the United States. These plants get retrofitted and converted into plastic refurbishing plants that ultimately get put into our roads all across the United States. Whoever manufactures these plastics for consumer or industrial use gets a “refurbishing tax” on each piece of plastic. Every customer that buys a piece of single-use plastic pays a small “refurbishing tax” on each piece of plastic they buy. Considering the amount of plastic we use, it will not take long for this program to pay for itself. Every road, every bridge, every bicycle path, every sidewalk, every parking lot and every single project that asphalt of any kind is needed must use this plastic, asphalt, and bottle mixture to do their job.
Ultimately, if fully visualized, this project creates jobs, helps our infrastructure buy supplying needed asphalt for all of the roads and highways that need to be resurfaced. We begin to eliminate plastic from our landfills. All of the single-use plastic that is getting thrown in the trash including the plastic from hospitals, printer cartridges, and the plastic from bags and containers all get put into special containers that all get hauled to these plastic refurbishing plants. Which gets put back into our roads. It is not an answer to end the use of plastics which seems like a utopian fantasy where we live in a world that understands that we need our oceans and our waterways to survive as a species. That all of this waste is killing our food supply and ruining our drinking water. It is not an unlimited resource. We all have to our part to be more conscious of our buying habits and start demanding that our congress and our political leaders start to take climate change and pollution seriously and that we want our money to go toward a plan that will help eliminate this plastic from our landfills and our rivers, oceans, and lakes. We have to start believing that we are not the last generation and we have the opportunity to leave a legacy for our children, that tells them that we understand we have made some mistakes but are willing to take action to create the change we want to be in the world. Paving the way to a smoother ride, one road at a time.
About the Creator
Tony Blankenship
Skeptic, recovered, punk rocker, dad, feminist, husband,and former chef. I write things.
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