A RESEARCH PAPER ON “UTILIZATION OF MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE IN ROAD CONSTRUCTION”

India has a road network of over 5,603,293 kilometres (3,481,725 mi) of roads as of 31 March 2016., the second largest road network in the world. One of the solutions proposed and demonstrated was by Professor Vasudevan in utilising waste environmental plastic in road construction. Road construction projects were pioneered in the state of Tamil Nadu followed by Karnataka as early as 2001. Both states have made significant progress since in rural and urban roads respectively. Other states such as Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Jharkhand, Delhi, and Maharashtra have demonstrated projects in other states as well. Plastic waste can be used in hot mix to improve physical properties of bituminous aggregate mix by ‘Dry Process’ or ‘Wet Process’. The technology as developed by Dr Vasudevan, incorporates the use of ‘Plastone’, a mixture of stone chips and waste plastic bags (thickness 40‐70 μm) which is heated at 150‐170 degree C during production, in laying roads, pavements and flooring purposes as an alternative to interlocking paver blocks. At this processing temperature, the plastic waste is heated enough to act as an adhesive in binding stone chips and not generating any toxic gases. The aggregate becomes water proof after getting coated with molten plastic.