Vancouver First City to Use Recycled Plastic in Asphalt

This is a compelling application of recycled plastic.  The fact that it saves 20% in fuel costs and can be applied in colder weather are both major payoffs.  Let us hope then that it stands up.

It also surely can be used to process plastic waste not otherwise properly usable.  That it is wax like suggests some sort of interim refining for the task.  All this get a problem to where it is an asset.  The market size is likely larger than any of us understand and every recycled road bed will soon be adopting this I am sure.

At least every city is collecting waste plastic as a separate stream so there is plenty of feedstock.

Vancouver first city to use recycled plastic in asphalt

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/vancouver-first-city-recycled-plastic-asphalt-203127143.html

Vancouver will be the first-ever city to use blue box recycled plastics as asphalt mix on the city's roads, in a move engineers say is a green step forward.

Old plastic milk jugs, yogurt containers and other post-consumer recyclable material will be ground up and made into a wax which then used as a warm mix for asphalt.

"It's actually a lot like crayon wax and what we are doing with this is putting it in the asphalt which we are putting down today," explained Vancouver city engineer Peter Judd at a Kingsway paving site Thursday morning.

For asphalt to be laid properly, it needs an additive to reduce the viscosity, or make the material go down smoother.

This mix makes up approximately one per cent of a typical asphalt batch. The raw cost of the recycled plastic is three per cent higher than typical asphalt mix, but there are significant savings over time, said Judd.

"We are using about 20 per cent less fuel at the asphalt plant than we would otherwise be using so an enormous saving in fuel costs and enormous saving in the green house gases that are associated with that," said Judd.

Judd said the new recycled ingredient also allows crews to apply asphalt on cool days, which wasn't possible before.

The city is piloting the mix in several parts of the city, and Judd said they believe it will be as durable as what's currently used.

The recycled plastic mix is now sourced from Ontario, but the city hopes to produce it locally in the future.