Soon, Philippine Roads Will be Built from Recycled Plastics

Talk about environment-friendly roads. San Miguel Corporation (SMC) is all set out to construct roads using hard-to-recycle plastics as one of its main ingredients in making asphalt.

According to GMA News Online, this is part of SMC's drive to address solid waste pollution happening in the country right now.

"Developing roads using plastics that would otherwise end up in landfills or our bodies of water is an environment-friendly method of disposing scrap plastics," said SMC President and Chief Operating Officer, Ramon S. Ang. "We can help our environment and at the same time improve the quality of our infrastructure projects."

Using plastics has its benefits. Not only will it lessen the number of plastic wastes in the garbage dumps and create better skid-resistance on roads, they are also cheaper materials to use for asphalt manufacture.

SMC will collaborate with science company Dow Chemical in creating the "plastic asphalts." Their initial testing will be done on parking lots, municipal roads, and sidewalks. This project will be done on a massive scale once all safety and quality requirements are met.

"While we are proud to be the first-mover in this area, we are very hopeful that we won't be the last or the only ones. The research is there and available to everyone, and we'll be glad to share our own processes and experience. At the end of the day, this kind of innovation will benefit the same environment we all share," he said.

The Philippines isn't the first country to use plastics for its road construction. This same technology has already been used in Thailand, India, and Indonesia.