UT Arlington's plastic-infused asphalt hits Texas roads for the first time

CBS News

2 days ago

Drivers traveling on a nearly mile-long section of SH 205 in Rockwall wouldn't notice anything unique about the asphalt, but what's underneath the surface could change the way roadways are built in the future.
For the first time, the Texas Department of Transportation is testing an innovative, plastic-infused asphalt on one of its highways, thanks to a team of engineers at UT Arlington. The hope is to address two major problems at once: mounting plastic waste and failing infrastructure.
"We have a road network that's deteriorating," said Dr. Sahadat Hossain, a professor of civil engineering at UTA and the director of the Solid Waste Institute for Sustainability. "So we are using plastic in building the road. We are taking one problem to solve another problem. And this is the perfect example of sustainability."
TxDOT is evaluating how well the plastic-infused asphalt performs under real traffic and brutal summer temperatures, conditions students at UTA have been simulating in a lab for six years.
"And for our samples itself, they're submerged in the water and they're also heated, which means that they're put to the worst possible condition that your pavement can be," said graduate student Garima Maharjan. "And then the wheels start running back and forth."
Samples of normal asphalt pavement in the lab have major signs of wear-and-tear after the series of tests, while the mix infused with plastic particles have little damage.
In 2023, Hossain's team used the plastic-infused pavement on two UTA parking lots, and ongoing performance evaluations show the asphalt is holding up well and is more durable than the typical asphalt.
"If we add plastic in the asphalt, the road durability increases, the rotting in the road and potholes in the road goes down significantly and it becomes a longer-lasting road." Dr. Hossain said. "So we are not only helping the environment, we are not only fixing the road, we are helping reducing the cost of road maintenance for the state of Texas. And hopefully in future it will be for the entire country."
The asphalt is infused with the plastic that sits in dumps and landfills or winds up in the ocean. Of the 48 million tons of plastic waste generated in the U.S. every year, the Department of Energy estimates only five to six percent gets recycled.
The plastic-infused asphalt could pave the way for a new model, where our trash finds a better way to make an impact on the earth.
TxDOT and the team at UTA are actively monitoring how this plastic-infused road in Rockwall performs. There are already plans to pave roads in Fort Worth and in Amarillo with the mix in the coming months, according to Dr. Hossain.
He believes international projects will likely start in the next year as well, with inquiries from countries like Nigeria, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia.