Broomhouses based MacRebur has worked with New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) to lay the first public roads containing waste plastic in the Staten Island area of the ‘city that never sleeps’.
The new eco-friendly surfaces have saved over 7331kg of CO2e in comparison to traditional asphalt and diverted the equivalent weight of 214,534 single-use plastic bottles from landfill.
They are now subject to a trial and will be tested and monitored to measure performance against traditional asphalt. That will be done by Rutgers University – one of the leading US universities in asphalt research and testing.
The results are expected before the end of the year and, in the words of Frank Sinatra, the MacRebur team are hoping to find they are ‘number one, top of the list’.
International business officer Roddy McEwen said: “Whilst trials sections such as these typically taking up to three years from start to finish, we have worked together to begin trials within just four months – with a long-term view of utilising local waste for local roads in New York City.”
Over one million tonnes of asphalt is produced and laid in New York every year and DOT commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said: “Using recycled plastic waste has the potential to solve our growing plastic waste problem and improve the quality of our streets by cutting carbon emissions and reducing potholes. We are excited to partner with MacRebur on this promising pilot and look forward to monitoring how its asphalt mix performs in New York City weather.”
MacRebur’s product is now used all over the world, creating waste plastic roads everywhere from Australia, South Africa and Estonia, to Croatia, Spain and Greece.
And now, it’s up to you New York, New York.
