Drive Over Plastic Trash and Old Tires!

My old man was in the concrete business. I was learning how to use (or at least hold) a trowel when I was 4 years old, working on a concrete driveway with him. Concrete is energy intensive, accounting for roughly 8% of all waste CO2 worldwide. But concrete is durable- what else holds up so well?

Well, plastic and old tires for one thing. What if you could take plastics and tires, headed for the landfill to spend a few hundred or thousand years buried, and take advantage of their persistence and durability? There’s a paving systems now, the Vast Paver, that's been getting a lot of press lately. This composite paver is made from 90-95% recycled scrap tire rubber and plastics. 1,000 square-feet of these pavers saves 500 tires and 15,000 plastic containers from landfills or incinerators. That plastic and rubber would be just lying around anyway- why not put them to work as pavement? Because they are individual bricks rather than a monolithic slab, they can be used in driveways, walkways, even rooftops, decks, and patios. And they come in several designer colors, so your car won’t have to drive over the same boring gray concrete all the time.

Vast Pavers weigh 2/3rds less than concrete and can be installed on a grid system. And they can help you get LEED certified. You can get permeable pavers to let the water drain through your drive or walk, not run off it. And that’s better for your yard and nearby creeks and streams. The things can even be cut with a circular saw if you want to do the installation yourself (wear a dust mask).

So check it out: by using these pavers, you avoid all that concrete, wasted energy and CO2, get those lazy plastic containers and tires out of the landfill and back into useful work, and wind up with pavement that acts more like natural gravel or stone. Sounds like a plan to me. Hey Dad, here’s another reason you should be glad you’re out of the concrete business!

Greenopolis.com is dedicated to our users. We focus our attention on changing the world through recycling, waste-to-energy and conservation. We reward our users for their sustainable behavior on our website, through our Greenopolis recycling kiosks and with curbside recycling programs.

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