Colorado company adding recycled plastic to asphalt

After China instated her ban on importing waste plastics in response to the Trump Organization's destructive trade policies some communities are learning to improvise. 

America ships millions of tons of salvage material to India and Asia to be recycled tearing up our own ground mining for virgin minerals while steel, copper and rare earth metals are still being buried in landfills. Japan recycles nearly 100% of her glass but the US has thousands of mountains of glass cullet from the municipal waste stream just waiting to be repurposed, yes, even for the silica used in hydraulic fracturing

It takes trucks, tub grinders and balers dedicated to specific materials on a regional scale to do recycling right and New Mexico surfs the bottom of the US for recycling. Online shopping is driving increased cardboard recycling and Albuquerque's plastic bag ban went back into effect in August. Growstone, Inc. buys Albuquerque's glass and manufactures a medium for horticultural applications. 

In Nova Scotia, Goodwood Plastic Products Ltd. harvests shopping bags, food containers and peanut butter jars from the municipal waste stream then turns that material into synthetic lumber, wharf timbers, guardrail pilings and agricultural posts. Most plastics can be pyrolysized for fuel or added to asphalt.

Santa Fe County ships nearly all the plastic harvested from the municipal waste stream to Colorado where Denver and Boulder are among the best cities for doing recycling right. Now a Pueblo startup called Ecologic Materials Corp. is recycling shrink wrap and adding it to asphalt.

During the first week of operation, the company took in 25 tons of plastic wrap and already has processed several tons. Another 50 tons of Pueblo’s plastic wrap is ready to be shipped over to the Ecologic Materials Corp. site. But the first road project will be in Arizona and there are several in the works in Colorado which will be announced when details are finalized. The asphalt binding process, which has been 30 years in the research and development phase, can prevent six tons of plastic per mile of road from ending up in oceans and landfills. Although the company does not currently have plans to accept single-use waste plastic from the public, its founders are hopeful they will be able to do that in the future. [Pueblo Chieftan]

Learn more about the movement to reduce microplastics in the environment linked here.