Recycled plastic, glass and toner being used to make roads

The recycled additive being applied to a street in Craigieburn, Melbourne (Source: ABC News)

In Victoria and Tasmania, some town and city councils are using a mixture of recycled single use plastic bags; crushed recycled glass and recycled printer toner to make roads. Currently it is more expensive but the roads are expected to last longer and the councils are moving towards meeting their requirements to deal with waste.

A 300-metre stretch of road, on Rayfield Avenue in Craigieburn, Victoria, uses an additive that's made up of 530,000 plastic bags, more than 12,000 recycled printer cartridges and 168,000 glass bottles. The same mix was used in Tasmania to seal one kilometre of road in Snug, a town south of Hobart. In both states, the additive is developed by the recycling company Close The Loop.

The single use plastic bags are from the REDcycle soft plastic recycling that is collected outside participating supermarkets.

Read more:
Rubbish is being transformed into roads, thanks to one Melbourne company. ABC News, May 29, 2018.
Plastics, glass and printer toner recycled into road in Tasmania. ABC News, December 11, 2018.