It’s estimated the ocean will contain more plastic than fish by 2050. Landfills are now overflowing with plastic waste. Scottish engineer Toby McCartney felt the need to come up with a way to use non-recyclable plastics. “I don’t want my little girl growing up in a world where this is the case,” he said.
His start-up plastic road company MacRebur adds waste plastics into an asphalt mix to create a “stronger, longer-lasting, pothole-free road.” He says his company’s roads cost less to make than conventional roads.
He developed his own industrial method to do this. Usually, roads are made of 90 percent rocks, limestone and sand, and 10 percent petroleum to bind the mixture. The plastic waste is made into pellets that replace almost all of the petroleum used in conventional road building. Most of the plastic waste the company uses is not conventionally recyclable and would’ve ended up in a landfill.