Workers at Bridging the Gap, a Kansas City recycling facility, poured a new sidewalk slab using a material made from recycled plastics, part of a growing effort to turn local waste into local infrastructure. The plastic waste is shredded and melted down into a sand-like aggregate, then mixed into concrete.
Through her nonprofit Live Green USA, Olivia English has spent years pushing cities to test plastic-modified roads and sidewalks. She says a key distinction with the Kansas City project is that the city’s waste stream is staying local instead of being shipped elsewhere.
“These single-use plastics are designed to be thrown away. But yet the molecular structure promises that it will last for centuries. So why not put that right in the roads here in our own backyard,” English said. “Seeing it really come full circle today, we are using local Kansas City plastic waste into a local Kansas City sidewalk. It shows that closed loop for me.”