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I believe that in each one of us is the ability to change the world. I also believe that in order to do so, we as human beings must work together. 

We are faced with many challenges as the human race, however, there is a cluster of them I like to call the The Triple Challenge. Many 3rd-world countries are plagued with the triple challenge within the Social Development Goals 2030, it is the challenges of plastic pollution, unemployment and poor roads networks.

What if we could address the triple challenge and work towards achieving our sustainable development goals 2030 by doing something we have been doing for years and will continue to do for years to come - by building roads - but building them in a different way.

A large component of bitumen (which is a by-product of crude oil) can be replaced with waste plastic as a bonding agent (polymer). If only 15-18% of the bitumen is replaced with waste plastic, it will translate into at least 1.5 tons of waste plastic that will be used in building only 1 kilometer of road.

The Triple Challenge:

Plastic Waste Pollution: The world is manufacturing over 300 million tons of plastic per year, of which 50% is single-use plastics and 8 million tons end up in the oceans. It is estimated that there is 64 million kilometers of road in the world - what if we could have put 1.5 tons of waste plastic in each kilometer? A 100 million tons of waste plastic would have reached the end of its lifespan in a complete circular economy and saving our oceans and our environment.

Job Creation/Unemployment: All the plastic used for road construction will have to be collected, sorted and packaged - unskilled labour that any person can do. In Countries and the Province where I am from in the Eastern Cape in South Africa, 46% of people are unemployed, nearly 1 out of 2 people do not know where their next meal will come from. This innovation can help create jobs for millions of people and assist in alleviating poverty.

Roads Network: In 3rd-world countries there is still a great deal of spacial inequality, many people are unable to get to schools, hospitals and job opportunities as a result of either non-existing or poor roads networks, this can assist in building roads that are cheaper, faster and eco-friendly which will restore roads networks as the life-blood of the economy.

I am aware that various companies and countries have already developed waste plastics that may be used in roads construction, that do not leach and will result in a complete circular economy, such as MacRebur in Scotland and Volker and Wessels in the UK (who builds complete plastic roads from molds) or even in India where plastic is simply being melted into potholes. This is therefore, something that has been done on an extremely small scale in a few places and in very different ways.

These methods are by no means the only methods that could be used to incorporate waste plastic into roads. Tests have shown that these roads are much stronger than conventional bitumen roads and does not form potholes and requires low to zero maintenance.

There is a massive opportunity and scope for engineers to create various ways of incorporating waste plastic into the building of roads, many measures to achieve this remains undiscovered, untested or still under a rock that must be overturned.

So why isn't everybody building roads made from waste plastic?

Here is the catch, the construction of roads is a function of government. Unfortunately, like most people, governments don't want to try something new until someone else has tried it first.

I want to put together a network of people that will be based in various countries that are in a position to convince their governments to build at least 1 pilot project of roads incorporating waste plastic using whichever method will be viable. Once we have proved that this can be sustainable, viable and a driver of  the triple threat in reaching our sustainable development goals 2030 we must work on incorporating goals/benchmarks and requirements for member countries.

I really believe that convincing governments to make use of this innovation can result in a complete circular economy of single-use plastics and reduce our pollution footprint, I believe it can result in far-reaching consequences in changing the world and impact millions of people (and millions of animals and life under water that we share this planet with). The technology is there now we must convince government's to make use of it!

(For Phase 2 - 4) a pilot - project will be completed in South Africa by November 2019.

Atlanta Prinsloo