Use of plastic bottles in road construction. In Russia they will build roads from plastic
An article about how Russia plans to adopt Dutch experience in laying roads from recycled plastic. At the end of the article - interesting video about plastic roads in Holland.
Testing of the new road surface began back in 2015. High-strength plastic is supposed to be created from recycled waste, resulting in a very reliable material with a service life that exceeds the durability of asphalt pavement by 3 times.
Now Moscow specialists from the Center for Expertise, Research and Testing in Construction intend to comprehensively study plastic for roads. They plan to purchase material to test for strength, coating evenness, thickness and even reaction to temperature changes in order to make their own opinion.
Ecology and economy
Foreign experts are much more concerned about the state of affairs than Russian ones. environment and the introduction of ways to preserve it. Asphalt, which is familiar to everyone, consists of gravel, sand and bitumen, obtained from minerals such as shale, coal, and oil. All these resources are increasingly depleted from year to year, becoming more and more expensive.
At the same time, fields, forests and even oceans are covered with a thick layer solid waste, including an abundance of plastic ones. This fact gave chemists and technologists the idea of using garbage for good, cleaning the planet and at the same time creating ideal highways.
Plastic Road was born in the very reputable design bureau Royal VolkerWessels Stevin N.V, whose employees are considered leading in Europe in port and bridge, sports and road construction, telecommunications and energy supply for the last 160 years.
Advantages of plastic road
The technology for laying roads made of plastic is expected to be more simplified compared to other coatings. For cement concrete roads, through channels are provided in the slabs, through which steel cables coated with anti-corrosion lubricant are pulled, and the prestressed reinforcement is placed in polyethylene tubes for its free movement. The ends between the plates are filled with sealant. This creates savings on the construction of the road base.
Asphalt concrete roads require more careful preparation. First, a multi-layer base is prepared, consisting of soil, sand, crushed stone, then a base layer, an intermediate layer and, finally, a finishing coating.
What about plastic roads? They do not need such multi-layering; they will fit perfectly on a sand cushion even in regions with a very changeable climate and varied precipitation. This makes construction not only fast, but also extremely simple and cheap. Plastic is not only resistant to precipitation, but also to ingress of flammable substances, automobile oils and electrolytes. Resistance to any temperature, be it +80 or -40 degrees, makes plastic coating indispensable in Russian realities.
The presence of a cavity inside the plastic will make it possible to conveniently place any communications there: gas, water supply, communication lines, electrics. IN northern regions You can even provide the possibility of a heated road, significantly reducing the accident rate in harsh winters.
Cast road panels, installed end-to-end, are supposed to be immediately coated with all the necessary road markings, which will last significantly longer than conventional paint. And the grandiose plans of the authors of this project include the function of changing the color of the road depending on the ambient temperature to inform drivers, for example, about ice.
Tests have shown that the friction capabilities car tires on plastic coating they are in no way inferior to grip on asphalt. Although plastic is not a hygroscopic material, experiments by technologists may well lead it to the desired degree of “roughness”. And in case of precipitation, moisture from the surface is supposed to be removed by large quantity small holes, or through another method of drainage.
Disadvantages of plastic coating
With so many undeniable advantages, what are the disadvantages? There are still doubts about the maximum weight that a plastic sheet can withstand. For example, what will be the duration of operation of the outer lanes of highways along which intercity buses and loaded dump trucks ply. Can plastic withstand such a heavy daily load?
Is it possible in principle to build plastic multi-lane roads? Or will this material turn out to be more practical on less crowded roads or even on country routes?
Dutch designers plan to find answers to all these questions experimentally with the help of a large construction company KWS Infra, which volunteered to help pilot the construction of the first plastic road in Rotterdam.
Competitors of the plastic road
Canadian road surface made from household waste
Canadian engineers were the first to experiment with a variety of road surfaces. In Vancouver, several streets have already been paved with an improved material consisting of a combination of asphalt and household waste– plastic cups and bottles, milk cartons and other garbage. The mixture is made in a ratio of 80:20, which ultimately produces gray asphalt that is quite familiar to the eye, whose beauty lies in the fact that several kilometers of it help clear cubic meters of land from debris. In addition, its production requires lower temperatures compared to traditional asphalt, which significantly reduces energy costs.
Of course, there was some criticism of the new coating. Skeptics have suggested that the presence of plastic in asphalt makes it more toxic, and therefore dangerous to human health and the environment.
Experts are quick to assure that asphalt and plastic contain the same hydrocarbons released from oil. So there is no difference in the level of toxicity between the materials.
And the fact that the production of a plastic road costs 3% more than an asphalt one is fully justified by the savings on the disposal of huge landfills of plastic waste.
American road made of polyethylene
American technologists have long introduced an alternative coating, EcoRaster. The amazing waterproof fabric consists of connected unified system lattice slabs made from recycled polyethylene. The cells of the blocks are filled with pebbles, gravel and even vegetation, which protects against erosion soil covers, A storm water are cleared of contamination through natural filtration.
To produce the unique coating, plastic is subjected to high heat to form a paste and then mixed with traditional road components. Thus it turns out the same asphalt road, improved, stronger and more durable thanks to the plastic component. And since the service life increases, the state saves the budget through repair work.
Even if in some places it’s like this road surface damaged, repairing it will take a minimum of time, effort and material costs. The asphalt has to be crushed with a jackhammer, hot tar must be mixed and potholes must be filled in, or a new asphalt must be poured. And the plastic just needs to be heated to a certain temperature and, like a child’s plate, stretched over the damaged section of the road.
During the use of EcoRaster, scientists conducted a study and calculated that in just one year of operation, the level of greenhouse gases decreased by 300 tons.
Arizona rubber tire track
In the American state of Arizona, another type of asphalt surface is used - with recycled rubber tires. Such an unusual additive makes the road dry quickly after precipitation or accidental spills, and also less slippery compared to a traditional asphalt road.
Russian realities
If Russian road construction began to learn from experience foreign countries, this would save enormous amounts of money on road repairs. Almost a million kilometers of highways annually require injections amounting to 1-2 trillion rubles.
On this moment the share of modified roads with the addition of polymers in Russia is only 5%, compared to 15% in the USA and China or 20% in Europe.
So far, in our country there is only one monopoly company producing road polymer additives. However, SIBUR Holding understands how many difficulties it will have to face, and therefore does not plan to release an innovative product. The lack of a regulatory framework and technical standards for working with polymers for road surfaces brings the problem of plastic roads to the legislative level. Making changes to the technical regulations requires the corresponding GOST, this requires the approval of SoyuzdorNII, and it needs the approval of the higher Rosavtodor. And the latter will be put under pressure by road construction companies defending their interests.
Therefore, Russia will not see plastic roads any time soon.
Video about plastic roads in Holland:
She approached the problem very seriously and comprehensively. The essence of the project is not only to improve the quality of the road surface. This is just part of the company's big idea.
PlasticRoads will be designed in such a way that there will be empty spaces inside, in which the relevant services can lay cables or pipes at any time. At the same time, they will not have to break up the asphalt and dig up everything around, creating many kilometers of traffic jams. However, the authors of the idea are looking much further: when in the future cars are connected into a network, it will be possible to modernize plastic roads.
For example, it would be very easy to place sensors under the road surface to help collect traffic flow data. Rainwater will flow off the road through empty spaces, and the plastic itself can be heated to avoid the formation of ice in winter time. How will it work? Every car driving on the road creates vibrations that can be converted into electricity.
The concept has other advantages as well. PlasticRoad consists of ready-made modules, which are combined into a road without requiring its gradual laying layer by layer. This reduces construction time from several months to several weeks. Of course, plastic road sections also require a solid base, but VolkerWessels specialists say that this can simply be very well compacted sand.
Plastic is a highly resistant material. It practically does not deform under the influence of traffic flow and even under the influence of temperatures. It can withstand temperatures from -40 to +80 degrees Celsius.
In addition, the plastic coating is durable. PlasticRoad has the potential to last up to three times longer than asphalt pavement, which requires replacement or repair after 12 years of use. The average service life of a plastic road is about 30 years, so the implementation of the project can lead to very significant savings.
Of course, to create roads made entirely from recycled materials, it is necessary to recycle great amount plastic bottles. VolkerWessels proposes to collect them in the ocean, where, with the help of another Dutch technology (Ocean Cleanup), garbage is already caught from the water using huge nets.
When it comes to protecting the environment, reducing CO2 emissions also matters. When processing asphalt, a huge amount of carbon dioxide. Every year, 1.6 million tons of CO2 are released worldwide from road construction. This is approximately 2% of all emissions caused by road traffic.
A road made entirely of recycled materials could appear in the next three years. But first you need to build a prototype to test the design, drainage system and how PlasticRoad handles traffic in different weather conditions.
The first tests will be carried out at a test site in Rotterdam. However, to implement this idea, VolkerWessels needs more partners - in particular, companies that are familiar with the plastic recycling process.
They want to test plastic roads in Moscow. The director of the State Budgetary Institution "Center for Expertise, Research and Testing in Construction" Viktor Egorov told the site about this.
“We will check the evenness of such a road, slopes, thickness, strength, durability. We will check all the main characteristics. The question is how the plastic will behave in heat and cold. We can also heat the plastic as part of the test,” Egorov said.
The center may purchase plastic specifically for research, he added.
The first road made of plastic will appear in the Netherlands. Its construction will be completed in next year. In 2015, KWS developed a concept for making roads from recycled plastic. The load-bearing capacity of plastic is the same as that of asphalt, but it is easier to transport and lay. It is believed that plastic is easy to maintain in proper condition. In addition, KWS believes that plastic roads will last three times longer than conventional ones because they will be resistant to weather conditions and mechanical abrasion. Their installation can be done on a leveled area of sand, and this process will take several weeks, not months, as is the case with asphalt routes. The structure of plastic plates involves the laying of utilities, which will also save on preparation.
Previously, the State Duma proposed launching the construction of plastic roads in Russia. According to deputies, this material is much more economical. At the same time, in Kaluga region They will build a test site for testing road surface mixtures and intelligent transport systems. The professional association Rusasfalt will also test road innovations.
Plastic roads will be a good replacement for asphalt roads, the presenter believes Researcher Institute of Chemical Physics RAS Vadim Nikolsky, specializing in road surfaces and nanotechnology.
"Such roads are being tested in Holland and other European countries. But to build them, you need to be able to properly contain waste, because plastic roads are made from it. We have not solved this problem. We collect little waste and do not know how to sort it. Therefore, it’s time to build massively plastic roads It will be difficult,” the expert noted.
According to him, if plastic roads are built in Moscow in compliance with all technologies, they will be durable, environmentally friendly and resistant to different weather conditions.
Architect-urban planner Ilya Zalivukhin supported testing of new technologies in road construction.
"Testing new technology in road construction is the right step on the path of development. But we need to start with small quantity plastic to see how it adapts to our difficult weather conditions,” Zalivukhin noted.
During the experiment, it is necessary to study how resistant this road will be to high loads - for example, to the passage of heavy large vehicles, the city planner added.
Vice-President of the Russian Motorists Movement Leonid Olshansky is convinced that the asphalt surface must be preserved on the capital’s roads.
“After all, it is necessary to remove the asphalt, which is already there and people drive on it normally. It turns out that we need to spend state budget funds for removing the old coating and laying a new one, as well as for the material itself,” said the specialist.
In his opinion, now they are not the best economic conditions for experiments with road surfaces.
Several years ago, the capital’s road workers planned to add crumb rubber from tires to the road surface, following the example Western countries. However, as the head of the State Budgetary Institution "Highways" Alexander Oreshkin said, the road surface project with crumb rubber did not justify itself. It was also proposed to replace asphalt with material made from and.
In Moscow, preparations are currently underway for the construction of Kutuzovsky Prospekt, new road will be ready by 2019. The city is clearing sites for construction; the construction complex plans to begin construction in 2017. As a result, Moscow will receive a highway with a length of about 11 kilometers and a width of at least four lanes, from the Molodogvardeyskaya transport interchange on the Moscow Ring Road to the Moscow City business center; up to 40 thousand cars a day will pass through this section. It is also planned to build Kutuzovsky Avenue. Its draft layout was approved in February. The route will start on General Dorokhov Street and go along Mosfilmovskaya Street to the Third Transport Ring. It is assumed that there will be travel along it. In addition, understudies may appear in all capital cities. According to experts, they are primarily needed on Volgogradsky, Leninsky and Leningradsky Avenues and Mira Avenue.
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21.01.2015Asphalt roads using plastic
Several years ago at the world construction market thanks to American company Purus-North America has introduced an innovative EcoRaster material designed to create highways.
They say, however, that the business idea itself comes from Canada.
The innovative material is a mixture of asphalt and plastic bottles, milk cartons and disposable cups in a ratio of 80:20. The result is ordinary dark gray asphalt with a rough surface.
The main advantage of the innovative material is that there is an unexpected and original opportunity to recycle used plastic packaging with benefits for the economy and the environment.
The second advantage is more low temperature coating production (120 degrees versus 160 required for the production of traditional asphalt). Energy costs are lower, and again there are savings.
The waterproof EcoRaster system is an excellent alternative to traditional asphalt. The new road surface consists of lattice blocks connected into arrays, made from recycled polyethylene. Its cells can be filled not only with the usual pebbles and gravel, but also vegetation cover. The latter helps protect the soil from erosion, and storm drains, through natural filtration, from pollution.
When making a new original road surface, plastic is heated to a paste, which is mixed with traditional components, resulting in a long-lasting and durable asphalt road. It is thanks to plastic that asphalt receives additional strength. This increases service life and, as a result, reduces road maintenance costs. Polymer road surfaces, among other things, are very easy to repair. If ordinary asphalt, when replacing it, is crushed with jackhammers, then the tar is spread, and the hot mixture is rolled out again along the road, then asphalt using plastic, after heating, is stretched along the road like plasticine. Road repairs with plastic coated lasts no more than three days. Fast and inexpensive!
Two years ago, the Canadian city of Vancouver decided to conduct an experiment using a new type of asphalt. In December 2012, one street was completely asphalted using new technology. At that time there was only one, but in the future, by 2020, all streets in the city with an area of more than 110 square kilometers will be covered with “hybrid” asphalt. And this despite the fact that the cost of this type of work is slightly more expensive - 3 percent compared to conventional asphalt paving.
Any undertaking, as often happens, has not only its supporters, but also its opponents. Thus, some skeptics in Vancouver claim that the new road surface is very toxic due to the presence of plastic. But supporters of the new product object: both asphalt and plastic are hydrocarbons obtained from oil. This means that mixing them is not particularly dangerous. As for the increase in costs for the production of “plastic” asphalt, these costs are more than compensated for by the disposal of plastic trash. Experts have also proven that when using the EcoRaster system, greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by 300 tons within 1 year. By the way, in American city Phoenix (Arizona) city authorities use asphalt mixed with rubber tires, which makes the road less slippery and dries quickly after rain. A similar business in road construction may be relevant for Russia. The length of paved roads in our country is more than 900 thousand kilometers. Due to constant road repairs, Russia annually loses about 1.8 trillion rubles or 3 percent of GDP.
However, so far the share of using asphalt with polymers is only 5 percent in our country, in China and the USA it is 15 percent, in Europe this figure is 20 percent. The monopoly producer of polymer additives intended for road surfaces in our country is the SIBUR Holding Group of Companies. The annual volume of polymer production here is 30 thousand tons. But SIBUR does not want to produce the so-called modified bitumen, because, firstly, it considers this business non-core for itself, and secondly, there is no normative base for road surfaces with polymers. Required technical standards on the mandatory introduction of polymer additives into asphalt. And to introduce technical regulations, in turn, it is necessary to approve GOST. The development of GOST is carried out by SoyuzdorNII, which is part of the Federal Road Agency (Rosavtodor). Some experts believe, however, that it is unlikely to be possible to use polymer asphalt throughout Russia: road builders, whose lobby is very strong, will probably oppose this. The only possible compromise is the use of modified asphalt on some routes.
Already in 2018, the first roads made of plastic may appear in Europe. Dutch developers claim that they will be of much higher quality than asphalt pavement, environmentally friendly, and their construction will be much cheaper.
Construction company VolkerWessels from the Netherlands presented its innovative conceptual design for creating a new type of road surface. The project was called PlasticRoad. The new road surface is proposed to be made of plastic. The company is now actively testing the new coating, and it is possible that in the near future it will replace asphalt and pedestrian slabs.
Unlike asphalt roads, plastic ones will have a wide range of quality benefits. The first and most important advantage of PlasticRoad will be their low cost. Such roads and sidewalks will be created mainly from recycled plastic. Coating production will also be an excellent source of waste disposal.
The second advantage is the rate of production and associated pollution. Installing plastic roads will take 2-3 times less time than laying asphalt pavement. Manufacturing process will no longer be accompanied by the release of harmful gases and noise. The third advantage of PlasticRoad is their durability. Such roads will last 30-40% longer than the most modern asphalt roads.
The creators of PlasticRoad assured that the road plastic they created is suitable not only for cold countries, but also for hot climates. The roads will withstand temperature loads of up to 80 degrees Celsius. Moreover, they will not accumulate heat like asphalt does. Inside, the road surface will be hollow, which will allow communications to be carried out and repaired without much difficulty.