To change the world 鈥渙ne road at a time鈥� is what University of Texas at Arlington engineering professor Sahadat Hossain and his students plan to do.
Hossain and the team have been developing a plastic-infused asphalt mix for road construction he said improves roads 鈥� and recycles plastic that would have otherwise gone to waste.
鈥淲e found out if we add plastic to the asphalt road, the road becomes more durable,鈥� Hossain said. 鈥淭he rutting and cracking are less. And the performance is much better.鈥�
This spring, the team replaced the top two inches of a section of North Goliad Street in Rockwall with a mix of asphalt and shredded plastic. It鈥檚 the first highway in Texas paved with the unique asphalt. Over the course of a single night, the team mixed the asphalt, brought it to the site and finished by 6 a.m.
Hossain, who is also the director of Solid Waste Institute for Sustainability at UTA, is not new to this work.
In 2019 he went to the Texas Department of Transportation鈥檚 Dallas district and asked to do a feasibility study. After running some tests, he got the green light to pilot the asphalt.
Hossain and his students built the first plastic-infused road on the UTA campus in 2023, patching a one-mile section over two parking lots. Doctoral student Ishraq Faruk said they used approximately 3.5 tons of plastic waste to complete the project.
鈥淭hat's almost estimated to be around 15 garbage trucks full of plastics,鈥� he said.
The 3,500-foot-long section of road in Rockwall used about 3.5 tons of plastic.
鈥淚f we had constructed a mile-long road it would have utilized like more than five tons of waste plastics, which is huge in points of diversion from landfills,鈥� Faruk said.
Plastic bags are dangerous because they can鈥檛 be recycled, Hossain said. He remembers driving along Highway 157 next to an Arlington landfill when a plastic bag hit his car.
鈥淣obody tries to recycle them,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey're all sent back to the landfill. We found a way to reuse that one-time-used plastic bag.鈥�
Hossain and his team will monitor the road in Rockwall in the coming years, and plan to expand the pilot to other roads in Texas.
In the fall, they will work on a road project in Fort Worth.
鈥淏ecause TXDOT is big, any project that is done in Texas successfully, other states usually follow Texas,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e are not going to be limited to Texas. We are going to expand nationally.鈥�
The Texas Department of Transportation said the project could 鈥渄rive a more sustainable future.鈥�
鈥淭his is taking one problem, which is plastic filling up our landfills, and using it to solve another problem by providing longer-lasting roads,鈥� Brian Barth, deputy executive director at TxDOT, said in a statement.
Hossain and his students have also worked on road construction in Dahka, Bangladesh, and several of his students spent a few months there to work on and oversee the project.
鈥淲e've been monitoring both UTA parking lot and Dhaka plastic road, and the results are amazing,鈥� Hossain said. 鈥淚n two years, we have absolutely no issues.鈥�
Groups from as far away as Ethiopia, Nigeria and Saudia Arabia have reached out.
鈥淚 think what we're doing here is, you know, we're integrating engineering innovation with sustainability,鈥� said student and team member Garima Maharjan. 鈥淎nd usually when we're talking about innovations, we neglect the sustainability part, so integrating both of these, it's a great job and I love to be a part of it.鈥�
Priscilla Rice is 四虎影院鈥檚 communities reporter. Got a tip? Email her at price@kera.org.
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