San Miguel to build roads from recycled plastics

March 11, 2019

San Miguel Corp. on Monday said it is building roads from recycled plastic to help reduce the impact of plastic waste on the environment. 

“This initiative is part of our push towards greater sustainability. Two years ago, we announced our major water sustainability project: to cut SMC water use by 50 percent by 2025,”  Ramon Ang, SMC president and chief operating officer said Monday. 

“Recently, we reported that we beat our 2020 intermediate deadline of 20 percent reduction, by two years. Last year, we announced another initiative, and that is to address solid waste pollution. This project is part of that goal,” he added. 

SMC will be working with Dow Chemical for the project that will use hard-to-recycle plastics as an alternate raw material input to asphalt.

“Developing roads using plastics that would have otherwise ended up in landfills or our bodies of water is an environment-friendly method of disposing of scrap plastics,” he continued.

“We can help our environment and at the same time improve the quality of our infrastructure projects. We are eager to begin this initiative,” he added. 

Dow has worked on projects that uses plastics for modifying properties of bitumen, used in the making of asphalt, which has been tested in India, Indonesia and Thailand. 

Initially, SMC will test out the technology in small municipal roads, as well as sidewalks and parking lots. 

“If the technology proves effective and meets all safety and quality requirements, the company may roll it out for larger infrastructure projects, Ang said. DMS