Despite stellar results over the last five years, it’s unlikely that plastic road technologies will be applied at scale in South Africa due to high upfront costs and little effort from government to integrate it into its maintenance arsenal.
In response to budgetary constraints and a rising maintenance backlog, the Kouga Municipality in 2019 launched a new pilot project that saw plastic-infused tarmac laid down on a 300m section of road in Jeffreys Bay that was due for a major overhaul.
The first-for-Africa experiment saw normal tarmac blended with 750kg of recycled plastic waste ground down into granules to make up the required volume that was needed to repair the pothole-riddled street.
The proof-of-concept project was sponsored by three private companies with the hopes of getting their foot into the door of a budding industry, with the municipality bearing no costs.
At the time, the municipality said that these plastic roads hold major benefits for the country as a whole.
Plastic is inherently more resistant to water ingress than normal tarmac and therefore fairs better over time in terms of pothole formation and edge deterioration, with the potential to last twice as long as normal roads.
The cost of the technology is also similar to that of traditional tarmac, said the municipality at the time.
As such, plastic-infused roads simultaneously address three major headaches for the authorities namely unemployment, expensive road maintenance backlogs, and marine pollution.
Now five years down the road, a physical inspection revealed that the plastic road showed little degradation since it was constructed and was in a far better shape than a street made from pure tarmac laid down during the same period.
Failure to launch
While the Kouga Municipality’s plastic-infused road delivered impressive results over the last five years, the technology is unlikely to find its way to other motorways in South Africa.
As per Executive Mayor Hattingh Bornman, this is due to the upfront cost of the plastic waste solution being higher than established road repair techniques, as well as a lack of government support.
“The initial cost [of plastic-infused tarmac] is a little bit more expensive because of the product they use, but over time, it’s a lot cheaper,” Bornman told Newzroom Afrika.
“For us as a local municipality, it’s just too expensive to put up a plant that manufactures these specific granules that they make the road of, so unfortunately, because the company that did the plastic road for us is a Scottish company, they have not set up a base here in South Africa.”
The company in question, MacRebur, said it was open to the idea of establishing a domestic factory should the country adopt these technologies nationwide. However, the Eastern Cape provincial government’s refusal to play ball means that it is a bad investment for MacRebur to do so.
“[MacRebur] was hoping to get a spin-off from this [pilot project] into the province and perhaps be able to roll it out provincially,” said Bornman.
“But the provincial government hasn’t bought into the project, which is very sad because as you could see, [the plastic-infused road] is still in perfect condition.”
Jeffreys Bay residents lauded the innovative road for its durability and comfort over the last five years and called upon the powers that be to apply the technologies at scale, seeing it as the key to ending the nation’s pothole epidemic.
Loading ...
