Plastic bottles and bags are being recycled into an asphalt mixture to produce roads that are kinder to the environment and, manufacturers claim, longer lasting.

A process that creates plastic pellets from waste bottles and bags and melts them into asphalt makes for stronger roads and less waste.

A number of councils around the UK are testing the ‘plastic roads’.

The process involves making plastic pellets from bottles and bags that would otherwise be destined for landfill sites. The pellets are then melted into the asphalt mix to act as a binding agent plastic makes up roughly 0.5% of the mixture.

Cllr Dave Murphy Shadow Cabinet Member for Neighbourhood Services said I understand that Highway Officers from Oldham Council have previously looked at this idea but have concerns over the plastic leaching out in to the water course but I believe this idea has merit and I have asked that Officers revisit the scheme and have provided them with a contact at a company who specialise in the product so they can obtain more information.

This can only be a positive move that we are encouraging Oldham to use. There will be less maintenance so we will be saving money. The formula makes the performance of the road much greater and part of the bitumen in the mix, that is fossil fuel is replaced by single use plastic.

Our analogy is that traditional bitumen is a bit like a Pritt Stick – what we have is a superglue. It binds the material together to form a much stronger and longer lasting bind, so we have less flaking or anything coming off”.

Councillor Hazel Gloster member for Shaw ward, added “There would also be less landfill tax because we’re not sending plastic into landfill. Although, at the moment, the pellets are slightly more expensive than bitumen, bitumen depends on the price of oil so that wouldn’t necessarily always be the case. Also, it uses a lot less binder or using our analogy glue, so there’s a saving there. It’s really quite exciting. Instead of using bitumen, which is a product of the oil industry, it uses plastics which would normally go into landfill so it’s environmentally friendly as well as being a good, hard surface for the road.”

Cllr Murphy concluded by saying “the world is using more plastics than it can responsibly dispose of we have seen shocking images in the media of plastics in our oceans and it is only right that as a local authority we look at innovative ways to dispose of our waste plastics.”