Apparently they are 3x as durable as asphalt. I wonder what the other ramifications are, like benefits/harms to the environment? What happens during a fire? What's the friction like when you slam the brakes? When it's wet?

This California Highway Has Just Become the First State Road Made From Recycled Plastic in the USNot only is the process used by Caltrans more eco-friendly that traditional methods, the material lasts 3 times longer than normal asphalt.www.goodnewsnetwork.org

That's an awesome idea.. in theory at least. I want a plastic house!

Here's another link about using PET for a roadway in Freeport Texas.

A Dow spokesman said they do not make plastic with the intent of it ending up in the Ocean. Burying it in road surfaces is certainly going to slow that process down, but one wonders where the road dust that is abraded from the road surface ends up - but then where does the asphalt or cement abraded from roadways with years of use go, too?

Major Plastic Producer Has Turned Over 100 Tons of Waste into Roads - With Many More Miles More to GoAfter successfully piloting the roads in Asia, the company has started laying the recycled plastic roads in America as well.www.goodnewsnetwork.org

Fingers crossed that this can work!!

Yeah, where that plastic goes is a really good and scary question. We already have that question with asphalt and it's not good.

Microplastic pollution devastating soil species, study findsResearchers in China saw big reductions in organisms that play a crucial role in recycling carbon and nitrogenwww.theguardian.com

How do recycled rubber roads compare to plastic ones?

So maybe we need to make road surfaces out of glass? - glass, at least, is a material found in the Earth's crust naturally since before life evolved.

Or maybe a glass composite of some sort, ceramic maybe? - probably more expensive than asphalt or cement roads however.

It's hard to believe now, but I think my science teacher in high school and me and another guy, started one of the first serious recycling centers in 1970. We only had to deal with aluminum, bimetal, and glass because that was the lion's share of it then — aside from paper, which companies were recycling in the day. I don't remember any plastic bottles or that plastics were much of a thing.

Anyway, aluminum threatened us because it takes forever to degrade in the environment, but the only real threat from glass was cutting your feet on the beach, which was common. But it was liquid quartz, so at least it didn't pollute the earth chemically.

And now I can't buy a camera accessory or pair of dark glasses without them coming in some plastic or nylon case I don't need and just goes into landfill or rivers and oceans, and slowly degrades into the soil and groundwater. That's why I haven't bought anything in a plastic bottle for years. I go to the farmer's market or produce sections in stores that don't encase the produce in plastic like Costco does. When Costco went from cardboard flats to plastic clamshells, I cried. But 99% of the world shrugs and thinks I'm a hippie/environmentalist extremist nutcase.

This conversation got me looking on the evolutionary reasons of waste.. and I found some articles quite educative.

Why Discard Studies?People tend to think that we are familiar with waste because we deal with it every day. Yet, this is not the case. Discard studies is central to thinking through and countering the initiative aspec...discardstudies.com

> What's the friction like when you slam the brakes? When it's wet?

This was one of my first thoughts when I read this.

I'm presuming when it's new it's textured to avoid slipperiness, but plastics do have a tendency to become very smooth after a lot of surface wear.

Maybe incorporate some sand in the plastic as its poured/extruded on the road surface to create a surface with some traction?

This is very interesting and thanks for posting. I don't see why we can't shift as a nation to having very creative people engaging the rest of the population to solving problems instead of denying them. It's perplexing to say the least but this story is yet another glimmer of hope.