COIMBATORE: Kurudampalayam village panchayat in the Coimbatore district, known for meticulously turning trash into treasure, has taken the next step forward by using plastic gathered in the village to lay roads.
With the help of a private waste management firm and experts, the village panchayat successfully laid a 200-metre road at Priyanka Nagar near Palanigoundanpudur with ground waste plastic mixed in it on a trial basis on Saturday. Villagers said it is the first such project successfully implemented in the district.
There are 9 villages and more than 13000 families under this panchayat. On average, the local body collects 10 tons of waste per day, and the dry plastic waste alone accumulates around 4000 kg per day.
D Ravi, president of the village panchayat said, "We took several initiatives in waste segregation in last eight years and many effectively are in process. For the past five months, we are concentrating on source segregation and recycling. As part of it, we adopted this plastic road model. After discussing several plans, we adopted the road project as it gives double benefit. We have planned to expand this across the panchayat limit in the coming days."
The source segregation was done in full swing by Planet Huggs Pvt Ltd which allotted 43 pushcarts to collect segregated waste from households in 15 wards. They have separated the wards into four clusters - three cover residential sites and one covers the commercial.
C Prashanth, one of the directors of the firm said, "After separating biodegradable and napkin waste, we took dry plastic waste for recycling. We handle 35 varieties of plastic waste usually and one of them is MLP (Multi-Layered Packaging), commonly used for road works, which can't be recycled easily. We can get a huge quantity of such waste as most food packages come with these plastic covers."
"Plastic tar road has double strength, compared to an ordinary bitumen road. It can withstand both heavy loads and heavy traffic and it is not affected by rain or stagnated water. The life of the road is not less than seven years and there is no need for maintenance expenditure. When mixing with the bitumen, we used around 180 kg of plastic wastes (chopped for 7mm) to lay a 200-meter road. Experts from Thiagarajar College of Engineering in Madurai guided us. Further, it will be a better option to handle the plastic waste," Prashanth added.