Plastic Roads for a Sustainable Infrastructure

To find new solutions to reduce plastic waste and prevent it from reaching our oceans, Dow has been working with different partners in different countries, including India, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia, to develop plastic roads that incorporate waste plastics into asphalt roads to improve durability while reducing plastic waste.

Dow worked with Philippine conglomerate San Miguel Corporation to build the first plastic road in the country. The pilot project was built in the San Miguel logistics hub in General Trias, Cavite, Philippines. With an area of 1500 square meters, the two-layer plastic waste road used 830 kilos of waste plastics, equivalent to 180,000 pieces of plastic sachets. The plastics were collected from employees' household waste, scrap packaging material and industrial plastic waste.

"We want to create a sustainable use for waste plastics so that they don't end up in landfills and our rivers and oceans," San Miguel President Ramon Ang said.

San Miguel said independent lab testing on its recycled plastic roads showed that it exceeded the Department of Public Works and Highways standards. The company added that it hopes to build plastic roads in its facilities and infrastructure projects in the future.