HowStuffWorks –
In the U.S., plastic already is being used in road maintenance. University of Texas at Arlington civil engineering professor Sahadat Hossain, director of the school’s Solid Waste Institute for Sustainability, has turned to recycled plastic as a way to solve the problem of unstable soil on highway slopes, which eventually can cause the road surface to fail as well. He’s developed a technology for taking plastic from landfills and then recycling it to manufacture giant pins that are inserted in the failing soil to stabilize it.