A stretch of road is being laid in New Town using discarded plastic.
Plastic waste collected from the township’s houses, offices and eateries are being shredded into pieces, which are being added to the bitumen mix to lay a stretch of about 5km, said an official of the New Town Kolkata Development Authority, the agency that is supervising the project.
“Plastic is water-resistant. The life span of a road increases if the mix used to build it contains plastic. Plastic also minimises the chances of potholes being formed,” an NKDA engineer said. “By using plastic in road building, we are also minimising the volume of plastic dumped in landfill sites.”
Delhi has several roads that have been paved with plastic, along with other materials. Plastic waste was used for the first time to pave roads in the national capital in 2008.
“It is good that Calcutta is planning to do the same,” said Sangeeta, the head of the flexible pavement division of the central government’s Central Road Research Institute.
“Building roads with waste plastic opens an avenue for reuse of plastic, which takes a long time to break down and is a serious environment worry,” NKDA chairman Debashis Sen said.
Waste from New Town is being collected in a segregated manner. The plastic waste collected from houses, offices, eateries and malls are being stacked in an area earmarked for such waste at the 20-acre plot in Patharghata.
