Asphalt is recyclable, you can tear it up, drop it in a mixer and pour it back out.
ADDING PLASTIC BREAKS THIS PROPERTY. DO NOT ADD PLASTIC TO ASPHALT.
…and create a perfect device to disseminate more microplastics as the bond breaks down.
Do you know what happens to your tires when they go from new with full tread to smooth with no tread? Adding some plastic to the road will add very little and may actually reduce some pollution since road-tire interactions can convert some of those plastics/rubbers.
Ah, yes… the old “acting responsibly here won’t completely solve the problem, so we might as well act irresponsibly” argument.
Explain why it is irresponsible. Did you read what I wrote?
just a little micro plastics, as a treat
Does adding tires and plastic bottles to clinker during cement production increase pollution and microplastics or decrease them?
Exactly what I came here to say.
What else is all the microplastic from your tires gonna hang out with?
The plastic is already here and unfortunately we haven’t figured out a good way to get rid of it. So instead of polluting our oceans and landfills, why not use it for better roads? At least until we figure out a better solution.
So we shred it to tiny particles and that’s that? Hmm
It’s already shredding naturally. At least this process contains it for longer than it otherwise would, potentially reduces more shedding from tires, and gives it some purposeful existence while we come up with better ideas.
Better than just letting it rot somewhere, right? At least, that’s my take. Maybe it’s wrong, but it’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.
Mixing it with a binder, effectively embedding it into a semi buried rock a seems like a slightly safer option than letting it sit out in the sun to be broken down by UV.
Not sure there are any “safe” options tbh but I’d rather it serve some purpose if it’s just going to break down either way, for sure.
and what are the odds that whatever company that is contracted to do the work does not use recycled plastic and instead shreds new plastic, because it is cheaper.
I guess that’s up to whatever process is used by municipalities to decide between vendors, and would encourage you to persuade your local government not to do this should they consider this strategy.
I dunno man. There are no perfect solutions for dealing with plastic waste at the moment. Until we have one, there are worse ways to go about handling it.
you’re right. i was just letting my doomerism run rampant on lemmy for a minute.
No worries I get it, that’s all too easy to do nowadays lol
🦵 🥫 🛣️
K…
ITT, people who don’t want their healthy petroleum-based asphalt soiled with unhealthy petroleum-based plastics.
The ‘quiet’ highways in Arizona use ground up tires in their asphalt mix. Doesn’t hold up to freezing conditions tho.
Whole lot of false dichotomy going on in this thread.
Yes, tires already produce microplastics but you also don’t have to use processes that produce more microplastics by mixing them into a road just because you have big accumulated stores of waste plastics as potential building materials.
You can just say they are end of life and develop a reasonable storage or disposal method that does not reintroduce them into the environment as this could.
That isn’t pie in the sky thinking either, there are numerous reactions and processes that allow you to do waste-to-energy with or even high intensity photo-degredation that is capable of producing syngas or even industrial grade hydrogen from this as a feedstock. With secondary scrubbers you can recapture the carbon and other waste products for sequestration.
Is this really a good idea? Nano particles?!
Those are already a thing. This is a proposal to make some use of this already present reality.
PNW has been experimenting with a version of this for a while involving old tires. Rather than let them continue to disintegrate in a landfill somewhere, adding them to newer roads allows the road to withstand freezing weather much better, reducing the need for carbon emitting repairs, increasing road lifespan (and therefore tire lifespan, which in turn reduces microplastic shedding by tires), and gives a second useful life to the plastics we already have.
So given that we can already add crumbled tire waste to asphalt, without adding new types of nano particles to the environment, it seems like this article is yet more greenwashing propaganda the plastics industry trying to find a use for waste plastic.
The article probably is and I’m not pretending to be an expert. Just saying in theory this could be useful ¯\(ツ)/¯
I’m against plastic use where possible, but don’t see a problem in putting what we already have to work if the alternative is to just let it fall apart on its own somewhere else. If we’re going to drown in this stuff might at least get some usefulness out of it.
