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Re-Laying of Roads Begins

  • Using plastic-mixed bitumen.The Chennai Corporation on Wednesday started re-laying roads and use of plastic-mixed bitumen.Launching the work on Lakshmanan Street in T.Nagar, Mayor Saidai S.Duraisamy said that all roads in the city will have plastic content in future. A total of 1,616 roads to be re-laid in 2011-2012 in the city would have 10 per cent plastic content in addition to bitumen.An amount of Rs.59.52 crore would be spent on re-laying 1,498 interior roads with a total length of 292.08 km this fiscal. Re-laying of 118 bus route roads, totalling 78 km, would be taken up at a cost of Rs.50.02 crore.

  • The initiative to re-lay roads with plastics in the city follows a gazette notification by the Ministry of Environment and Forests in February 4, 2011. The notification said: “The municipal authority shall encourage the use of plastic waste by adopting suitable technology such as in road construction. The operator intending to use such technology shall ensure the compliance with the prescribed standards including pollution norms prescribed by the competent authority in this regard.”The plastic waste generation in the Corporation limits is at the rate of 9 per cent of the 3,711 tonnes of garbage a day. This amounts to 334 tonnes per day which could be used for re-laying of roads if all the residents cooperate with the civic body by leaving their plastic waste in collection bins.

  • The civic body has put in place bins in every ward office. The plastic would be shredded to a size of 2-3 mm using a scrap grinder before use in road re-laying, said R.Vasudevan, Dean, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai. The bitumen mix after addition of plastic would have a temperature of 140 degree Celsius before paver machine is operated. The quality and strength of the road increases manifold after mixing plastics and potholes formation could be prevented, he added.

  • Corporation Commissioner P.W.C.Davidar said that the civic body would also focus on aspects such as camber of roads. “We will check the quality of design after re-laying,” he said.

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