Mayor Asha Sharma and Municipal Commissioner Dinesh Chandra inaugurated the road built near Yashoda Hospital on Friday.
Setting an example to utilise plastic, which is hazardous for the environment, the Ghaziabad Nagar Nigam (GNN) has built a 100-meter long road that is made up of plastic waste. Mayor Asha Sharma and Municipal Commissioner Dinesh Chandra inaugurated the road built near Yashoda Hospital at Sanjay Nagar on Friday. They said that such roads will have a longer life and will also cost less on maintenance.
The road is made up of plastic carry bags, bottle waste, glasses, cup and plates of plastic that can only be recycled and were a cause of pollution up to now. GNN had confiscated these plastic materials in multiple drives conducted in the city.
The drives had taken place after the Uttar Pradesh government banned the use of plastic in August 2018. The corporation accumulated over a thousand kilograms of plastic in the drives.
"We couldn't sell it off so thought of utilising it in building a road," said Chandra.
The officials the municipal body said that the road is built as per the norms set by Indian Road Congress (IRC). "The hot-mix plant was on display wherein 7 per cent plastic was used as a filler and 5.2 per cent as bitumen and the rest other material was used," officials informed.
Well, Ghaziabad has joined the club of cities building plastic composite road a little late.
Chennai is one of the first and leading cities in India to implement this model. The city has, so far, used, 1.6 lakh kilograms of plastic waste to build 1.035 kilometres of roads. Indore recycles 100 per cent of its plastic waste and has used 5,000 kilos of waste plastic to build 45 kilometre stretch of roads in the last two years.
Meanwhile, Surat has used 90,000 kilos of waste plastic to build 15.91 kilometres of roads. The Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) is currently working on a design where they would be able to increase the volume of plastic waste and decrease bitumen in the mix.
Besides, Pune and Lucknow also host several kilometers of roads made with plastic composite.
It is important to note that India produces about 15,000 tonnes of plastic waste daily, of which about 9,000 tonnes is recycled. The remaining plastic is either burnt leading to air pollution ends up in landfills or clogs drains.
