Recycling waste plastics in roads: A life-cycle assessment study using primary data.
Asphalt pavements
Bitumen
Life cycle assessment
Sustainability
Waste plastics
Journal
The Science of the total environment
ISSN: 1879-1026
Titre abrégé: Sci Total Environ
Pays: Netherlands
ID NLM: 0330500
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
10 Jan 2021
10 Jan 2021
Historique:
received:
29
06
2020
revised:
17
08
2020
accepted:
19
08
2020
pubmed:
6
9
2020
medline:
6
9
2020
entrez:
5
9
2020
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
The present study investigates - from an environmental perspective - the processes that lead to the conversion of waste plastics into recycled plastic pellets to be used either as an additive (wet method) or as a replacement of natural aggregate (dry method) in the production of asphalt mixes. Data from recycling facilities in Victoria, Australia, were collected and used as the basis for a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) study. Analyses were conducted by considering several replacement ratios of virgin material by its recycled counterpart in the so-called wet and dry method. A case study considering the production of recycled-plastic asphalt to be applied in the construction of a typical surface layer of a road in Victoria was evaluated. In general, the results show that recycling plastics as a polymer for bitumen modification and as a synthetic aggregate replacement in asphalt mixes has the potential to be environmentally advantageous compared to their virgin counterpart (i.e. virgin polymers and natural quarry aggregates).
Identifiants
pubmed: 32890798
pii: S0048-9697(20)35371-7
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141842
pii:
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
141842Informations de copyright
Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts
Declaration of competing interest No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.