Odisha has been advised to use plastic wastes in road construction as an environment friendly initiative and especially to tackle the plastic wastes menace.

As consumption of single use plastic is going on and the Prime Minister has waged a war against such products, the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) has advised the State Government to go for plastic waste utilization in constructing rural roads in the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY).

Union Rural Development Secretary Amarjeet Sinha has advised the State Government in this regard.

Sinha, who had visited the State several times for taking up a review of PMGSY, strongly feels that plastic waste can be fully utilized in road construction and at least 13,000 km of PMGSY road has already been constructed using such waste products.

While plastic waste is choking urban centers, disposal of such wastes are to be taken in a systematic manner.

Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy recently reviewed disposal of solid waste in the urban centers and plastic wastes, which isa major cause of concern for the Urban Local Bodies (ULB)s. In fact, the Odisha Government in Department of Housing and Urban Development has come out with Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for disposal of solid waste.

Under the backdrop, thr MoRD efforts to allow plastic waste for road construction has come as a big relief for the State Government.

After collection of plastic wastes those can be shredded to less than 4 MM size and it can be mixed with bitumen for laying bituminous surface roads, advised experts.

In fact plastic waste helps in increasing the strength of the roads and it reduces road fatigue. These roads are better resistant to rains and it makes road durable for long period.

With heavy rains lashing the State roads are damaged and commuters are facing hardship. Accordingly,  the Government of India is presenting PMGSY road projects to the State Government for utilization of plastic wastes.

Once it is implemented, then it will help disposal of plastic wastes on the one hand and on the other, it will make roads durable, pointed out an expert.

Use of plastic waste will reduce use of bitumen of about 80 percent and this will result in more major environmental benefits, said the officer.