Country could save an estimated Tk 15.0 billion annually through the use of blended waste plastic in road construction. Such use of the material could also minimise environmental hazards caused by the non-biogradable item, experts said.
Using waste plastic for improving roads of Bangladesh could increase durability of roads by reducing their maintenance cost, they said.
Each year about Tk 64.80 billion are spent under the Annual Development Programme (ADP) and revenue budget on the construction of roads and their maintenance, experts said.
The benefits that the country could derive from the use of blended waste plastic was highlighted at a roundtable on 'waste Plastic Recycling for Road Improvement in Bangladesh Wednesday. The roundtable was jointly organised by the Bangladesh Transport Foundation (BTF) and the Practical Action, an international NGO, at a city hotel.
A team of experts from the BTF during its visit to the Indian city of Bangalore in March last gathered first-hand experience on the use of recycled plastic in road construction.
A team of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) has also conducted a study on this matter.
Speaking on the occasion, BTF chairman Kamaluddin Chowdhury said: "Government can take a pilot project on blended plastic waste. It could allocate a small portion of its road construction budget to examine the potentials of the new technology."
It could prove a successful project as Banglalore having almost similar environment has employed the technology successfully, he said.
"The performance and longevity of the roads constructed with plastic blended bitumen are significantly better compared to the normal bitumen roads," said SM Shafiqul Alam executive engineer of road and highways department.
He presented a keynote paper in the occasion on 'Waste Plastic for Eco-friendly and Sustainable Road Construction in Bangladesh'.
"Major reasons behind short life cycle of country's roads are hostile climate and overloaded vehicles, which cause damage to conventional pavement," he said.
Environmental concern of the non-biogradable plastic will also be minimised through the application of the technology found to be successful in India, Brazil and Canada, Islam said.
Domestic plastic consumption is over 54000 tonnes a year, which is growing at 5.0 per cent per annum.
Roads and Highways Department (RHD) is maintaining about 21571 km highways and regional and zilla roads while Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) has to maintain about 78,105 km of paved roads in upazilla and union levels and more than 100,000 km of unpaved roads in the Union and rural areas.
The cost of making such polymer modified bitumen roads may be 5-10 per cent higher than normal roads, but higher durability and lower maintenance costs will save the costs in the long run, they said.
LGED of Bangladesh has already constructed pilot trial pavement in three road sections during 2005-06 using crammed rubber polymers. A post construction evaluation of one of the trial sections has shown 84 per cent, 57 per cent and 15 per cent less cracks, depression and raveling respectively than the adjoining conventional construction.
Experts have called upon the government road agencies including RHD, LGED and city corporations to take a comprehensive project in this connection.
The projects should include Bangladesh Road Research Laboratory and academic institutions like BUET to do mix design, post construction monitoring and evaluation.
