Turning waste into treasure is the mission of a partnership between Bayside and RMIT University, with recycled plastic being converted into asphalt to improve the durability of our roads.
Under our Annual Road Renewal Program, Bayside annually resurfaces sections of asphalt road with different types of asphalt.
The innovative project, which is supported by the Australian Research Council, Austroads and 10 Victorian councils, will use RMIT’s recommended asphalt mix to resurface a section of Roslyn Street, Brighton.
Project lead, RMIT Associate Professor Filippo Giustozzi, said the team will also produce best-practice guidelines on the use of recycled plastics in asphalt roads.
As a Bayside resident, Filippo is aware of the local sustainability implications of teaching residents how to recycle road-grade plastics to be used in road renewal efforts.
“In the future, Bayside might be in a position to collect the plastics from their own households, bring the plastics to a plastics recycler in the area and ask the recycler to produce that type of (road-grade) plastic,” Filippo said.
Bayside Mayor, Cr Hanna El Mouallem is looking forward to seeing recyclable products transform our road maintenance.
“It’s great to see better use of recycled materials in one of Council’s core responsibilities – road maintenance. By working with innovators such as RMIT we can not only improve our local roads but also help to encourage a circular economy for our waste and recycling,” said Cr El Mouallem.
RMIT’s research team will evaluate the performance of the trial road section of Roslyn Street, which is expected to be installed between January and February 2024, to compare its performance against that of other sections of Roslyn Street where we will use standard asphalt mix.
