The new material, explained the Barcelona City Council, has a higher resistance than normal pavements and has a better behavior when passing buses.

The Barcelona City Council, in Spain, is implementing creative and innovative ways to reuse non-recyclable plastic, all with the aim of reducing environmental pollution.

As part of a pilot test, the Barcelona City Council installed a new pavement on Passeig de la Verneda that incorporates traces of plastics that cannot be recycled and that have already finished their useful life.

The new pavement was installed in the Bon Pastor neighborhood, in the Sant Andreu district, last December, and it is planned to evaluate the resistance of the material to heavy traffic, as well as to account for the CO2 reduction.

As explained by the authorities, this initiative will reduce the amount of CO2 that is released during the manufacture of the material used for asphalt (bitumen), because thanks to the use of plastics the generation of this polluting gas is reduced. It has also been reported that the subsequent treatment traditionally carried out on plastic waste is avoided.

So far, it is estimated that the manufacture of the new pavement to asphalt the Paseo de la Verneda has resulted in a reduction of 17 tons of CO2 compared to what would have been emitted if the pavement had been manufactured in a traditional way.

For its configuration, a total of 4,500 kg of plastics have been used that could not be recycled and which have been given a last use. It should be noted that this figure would be equivalent to about 3,000 household garbage bags full of plastics.

The new material, explained the Barcelona City Council, has a higher resistance than normal pavements and has a better behavior when passing buses. If the pilot test is successful, it is expected to extend this type of pavement in other actions in the Spanish city.

The City Council carried out the application of this agglomerate together with the developer company AMSA and the BAC and IM3 engineering companies, awarded the Barcelona pavement maintenance contract.