In an order to curb pollution by putting plastic waste to use, the Noida Authority has decided to construct a road in the city. The 2.5 km long road, using plastic waste, will be constructed between Sector 14A and Film City Flyover. The construction work began on Friday, September 13. Before Noida, cities like Lucknow, Pune, Chennai, Jamshedpur and Indore have also done such construction work.

This concept is not new to India. Back in 2015, the Indian government made it mandatory for all road developers in the country to use plastic waste for road construction. This was a result of efforts by Rajagopalan Vasudevan, a professor from Madurai’s Thiagarajar College of Engineering, who built roads by recycling plastic waste. Since then, these cities have used plastic waste to construct roads.

1. Lucknow: Back in June this year, the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) began the construction of the road using plastic waste. The environment-friendly initiative helped construct a road out of plastic waste on the area spread from Gomti Nagar Police Station to Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Lucknow.

2. Chennai: Another city who has been acquainted with the process is Chennai. The city is experimenting with it since 2011. In fact, Chennai has used nearly 1,600 tonnes of plastic waste to construct 1,035.23 kilometres length of roads in recent years. These include N.S.C Bose road, Halls road, Ethiraj Silai Street and Sardar Patel street.

3. Pune: The Pune Municipal Corporation constructed a 150-metre stretch of Bhagwat lane at Navi Peth near Vaikunth Crematorium in 2016. Additionally, a number of trial patches have been made in Pune, including Dattawadi Kaka Halwai Lane, Katraj Dairy, Magarpatta City HCMTR Road, Kavde Mala Road, Koregaon Park Lane No 3 and Yeravada Sadal Baba Darga Road from Chandrama Chowk.

4. Jamshedpur: The steel city is much advanced than many cities in India. The Jamshedpur Utility and Services Company (JUSCO) constructed a 12-15 kms road in the steel city as well as Tata Steel Works using plastic road. This included a nearly 1km stretch in Ranchi, 500m stretch each in Dhurwa and Morabadi, 3km of roads in Chas and Jamtara each and 500m stretch in Giridih.

5. Indore: Back in 2014, the Madhya Pradesh Rural Road Development Authority (MPRRDA) has constructed around 35 km of roads in 17 districts with plastic waste.