When I was in high school in addition to my part time job at the bowling alley and my part time job writing about sports in the local newspaper I found a third way to earn extra money; returning cans and bottles for cash. If you look at your water bottle, soda can or beer bottle right now, you’ll see an offer for a five cent deposit if you return it Hawaii, Oregon, New York, Maine, or where I grew up, Connecticut.
The same was true when I was in high school. For every bottle or can you returned, you got a nickel. My friends and I discovered that most people were too lazy to collect, save and return the containers just for five cents apiece. We saw an opportunity and jumped on it. Every week we’d make the rounds around town hitting up liquor stores, package stores, delis, schools and other places where we might be able to find cans and bottles. The local hospital was the best of all. They served little “pony” cans of soda to patients. Even though they were half the size of regular cans, they still brought us a nickel each. Less space, same amount of cash. The hospital was always a huge haul.
I was reminded of this endeavour last week when I read an article about a Dutch company that is going to start making roads with recycled plastics. Yes, the same plastic soda bottles that I used to return for five cents may someday replace the asphalt and concrete of our highways and surface streets.
If this comes to fruition it could become the perfect marriage of conservation and cost. As we here in the Atlanta area well know, the cost of building, rebuilding and repaving roads is insanely expensive. If KWS Infra (part of the VolkerWessels construction group and the biggest road builder in the Netherlands) can make the “recycled roads” work, it could be a massive game changer on our highways.
The idea is to manufacture segments of roads at the factory, then bring them to the road construction zone. Being lightweight and easier to move, transportation costs would help save money in construction.
The manufacturer would pre-install road markings and guard rails so the road segments would be ready to go on arrival. The recycled “fabric” that the new roads would be made of are allegedly more durable than asphalt and would need considerably less maintenance.
While you should already be recycling your water and soda bottles right now, don’t expect these new age roads to become a reality in Georgia anytime soon. KWS Infra is planning to “have a team in place by December” to work on the prototypes and run a full pilot program within three years.
Still, if this proves to be feasible, it could completely revolutionize the way we build the roads we drive on.
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