City Asphalt worked with MacRebur and the New York City Department of Transporation on the plastic ... [+]
Plastic waste doesn’t have to be wasted. You can drive on it instead.
MacRebur, aka The Plastic Road Company, says Staten Island is now home to the first public roads in New York created using waste plastic. The British company MacRebur partnered with the New York City Department of Transportation on the project.
Work began in late August on Rice Avenue and Royal Oak Road and took four days, says Roddy McEwen, international business officer at MacRebur.
Four different types of asphalt mix were used, totaling more than 2,400 tons.
One mix contained 100% traditional asphalt; the remaining three consist of asphalt mixed with MacRebur’s waste plastic additive. “Six percent of the liquid asphalt content was replaced on day one, 10% was replaced on day two and 12% on day three,” McEwen explains.
The additive replaces part of the bitumen (fossil fuel) binder, the company says. It’s described as “otherwise unrecyclable plastics re-engineered into a new, high quality, sustainable polymer.”
The four sections will be tested and monitored to see how well they perform compared to traditional asphalt. Results from Thomas Bennert at the Rutgers University Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation are expected by the end of the year.
“Our project evaluation has shown that our products improve the cracking resistance within the asphalt mix—which is really encouraging for the future,” McEwen says.
Where the Plastic Meets the Road?
Just what’s the impact of using the plastic additive instead of a regular bitumen binder? MacRebur says the two New York roads are equivalent to saving more than 7,300 kilograms (16,000 pounds) of carbon dioxide from getting into the atmosphere and diverting more than 214,000 single-use plastic bottles from the landfill.
A licensed manufacturer in San Diego, California, produces the product for the company.
“Our plan is to demonstrate that our products cannot only reduce carbon emissions from asphalt production but to also improve the quality of the road,” McEwen says. “Our long-term aim is to open a manufacturing facility on the East Coast using local waste in local roads.”
NYC DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said in a statement: “Using recycled plastic waste has the potential to solve our growing plastic waste problem and improve the quality of our streets by cutting carbon emissions and reducing potholes.
“We are excited to partner with MacRebur on this promising pilot and look forward to monitoring how its asphalt mix performs in New York City weather.”
City Asphalt applied the mix to the New York City roads. A manager there said anything that can create a high-quality road while reducing the use of high-priced bituminous oil is a plus.
McEwen says MacRebur products are lower in cost by about 10% and “the more liquid asphalt replaced, the greater the saving.”
Qadir Hosseini, executive director of NYCDOT,, Matthew Cruz, general manager of City Asphalt; and ... [+]
MacRebur expanded to the United States in 2020. The company says its product is used all over the world, from San Diego to Australia, Estonia, Croatia, Spain and Greece.
Back in 2021, the company was planning to open a $1 million factory in Florida.
“Covid has delayed our ambitions of opening, unfortunately,” McEwan says. “We are now using various trials across the East Coast to demonstrate the quality of our products. Once enough demand is generated, we aim to open a facility.”
