Watch: How an Indian professor is turning plastic trash into highways

Todd Reubold

Plastic pollution is one of the greatest challenges facing the world. Just last week scientists writing in the journal Scientific Reports announced that the weight of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was four to 16 times more than we thought.

All of this means finding ways to recycle and reuse plastic waste are more important than ever.

Enter Rajagopalan Vasudevan, a professor at the Thiagarajar College of Engineering in Madurai, India. After seeing plastic waste was a growing problem throughout the country, he devised a method for converting recycled, shredded plastic waste into flexible, long-lasting roadways.

To date, thousands of kilometers of highways in India have been paved using the process he invented, thereby reducing the amount of plastic waste that might otherwise be released into the environment.

Budapest, Hungary-based filmmaker Seth Coleman produced, shot and edited this video.

The post Watch: How an Indian professor is turning plastic trash into highways appeared first on Ensia.

Todd Reubold is the publisher, director and co-founder of Ensia. In this role he is responsible for overall leadership of the Ensia media platform; which includes Ensia’s award-winning print and online magazine, live events and more.