Non-recyclable plastic road surface debuts in Barcelona
It paves the way for sustainability
On the first day of the new year, Barcelona’s municipal website reported that a street in the city’s Bon Pastor neighborhood received a new road surfacing with a durable material made mostly of non-reusable plastics. This is a pilot project to observe and measure the resistance of this pavement to heavy traffic. If deemed effective, it will be applied to more streets and neighborhoods in the Catalan capital.
Reduction of CO2 emissions in the production of this asphalt
Estimates indicate that the manufacture of this new pavement resulted in a reduction of 17 tons of CO2 compared to what would have been emitted if the pavement had been manufactured with traditional methods and materials. To manufacture the road surface of the section, the builders used a total of 4,500 kg of non-recyclable plastic. Instead, they were given an end use in their life cycle. To put it into context, that’s a figure that would equate to around 3,000 plastic-filled garbage bags.
The new sidewalk was installed on Paseo de la Verneda, in the northeast neighborhood of Bon Pastor. The new material, which incorporates traces of plastics that had already ended their useful life, has a higher resistance (compared to normal pavements) and better behavior when exposed to the regular passage of heavy vehicles such as buses and trucks.
If the pilot test is satisfactory, this type of pavement will be installed in other areas of the city. The installation of this agglomerate was carried out jointly with the development company AMSA and the engineering companies BAC and IM3, which had won the maintenance contract for the Barcelona pavements.
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