As part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan, SAIL’s Rourkela Steel Plant has initiated a new project of utilising waste plastic in construction of roads for the first time in Odisha, as a pilot project.
A stretch of one km of road between Rourkela Club to Shaktinagar Chowk in Sector-2, Rourkela, has been constructed mixing shredded waste plastic in road tar. SAIL is also carrying out massive road repair jobs in the township using in-house road tar.
An estimate says that out of the total plastic waste generated in India, about 60% gets recycled, while the rest 40% litters and chokes the environment. Studies have revealed that waste plastic has great potential for use in road construction as its addition in small doses, about 5-10% by weight, to bitumen helps in substantially improving the marshall stability, strength, durability, fatigue life, resistance to water-induced damages, resistance to deformation and other desirable properties of bituminous mix, leading to improved longevity and pavement performance.
SAIL had started door-to-door collection of domestic garbage, waste plastic is segregated at different intermediate garbage stations spread across the Steel Township, which is then collected and transported to an exclusive store at Sector-15, constructed for this purpose. The plastic waste material is shredded thereafter using the facilities of local recyclers, and transported to Hot Mix Plant to mix with the aggregates used for tar concrete.