Cumbria County Council is introducing ‘plastic’ roads around the county after successfully trialling a new product that replaces some of the bitumen with recycled waste as part of the asphalt mix for resurfacing schemes.

CCC was the first highways authority in England to carry out trials with the ground-breaking plastic-based bitumen replacement material and, on the back of that success, is now using the product in some of the larger resurfacing projects in Cumbria.

One of the biggest schemes to date was a £200,000 resurfacing scheme on the A7 Kingstown Road / Scotland Road, one of the main arterial routes into Carlisle, which was completed earlier this month.

For the A7 works, using the recycled plastic material involved the equivalent of offsetting 500,000 plastic bottles and over 800,000 one-use plastic carrier bags.

The recycled plastic waste product used in resurfacing involves a bitumen substitute which can be used in the standard asphalt mix and is made from waste plastic converted into pellets. Because the product is made from waste plastic, it’s more environmentally friendly and provides an opportunity to reduce the carbon footprint of road construction.