Using plastic in road building can extend the life of thorough fares and be a practical way to manage waste, according to experts at the 81st annual meeting of the Indian Road Congress (IRC) in the state capital. “What used to be a wonder material is now called a notorious material and one good solution is to use it for road construction,” said Mahesh Kasture, chief manager corporate, Bharat Petroluem Corporation, while addressing a technical session at IRC. He was delivering a talk on “Utislisation of plastic waste in road and allied construction.” “Using plastic waste for road construction is an effective solution for end of plastic utlisation in an environmentally friendly manner, thereby saving such plastic from entering the food chain,” he said. “The success of the process has been proven by laying several stretches across India and these are the operational today also. Its success will lead to achieve the goal of Swachh Bharat Mission and generate carbon credits for green utilization of waste plastic,” he said, while showing videos and pictures of a pilor trail in Noida where roads with plastic were made years before and are still smooth. “Total utlization was about 250 metric ton of plastic waste in about 5 to 6 km of road,” he said, sharing statistics from projects done across the country, including Kochi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Maharashtra and Noida. “Once it is under the road, plastic will never come again to cause trouble, “ he said. “Plastic in trace material has been found in studies in foods. Once plastic enters the human body, it wil only damage body organs and stay unharmed itself,” said Dr Abhishek Shukla, secretary general, Association of International Doctors. He claimed that the IRC's recommendations could be useful for expanding the scope of this process's investigation in other locations. See also: Steel Slag Roads: Techno-economic and environmental benefitMoRTH asks road construction companies to use fly-ash in construction