141–150 of 197 posts
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Asphalt also emits microparticles during wear and tear, as do tires... It needs to be tested, not assumed.
No you should assume it’s a problem until proven otherwise. We only have one environment and shoving anything we please into it without so much as a second thought is exactly what’s led us to our current predicament.
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Might have been shredded-tire playground walkway material.
Not that soft. It looked like rigid concrete, but sagged a bit.
https://jalopnik.com/a-detroit-bridge-collapsed-under-a-mans...
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The bricks will aspirate toxic chemicals when exposed to direct sunlight: "...Plastics leached twice as much pollution in sunlight as in darkness, they found. One bag leached 263 different chemicals in the dark but more than 13,000 when exposed to light! Others leached even more. And the longer bags were exposed to sunlight, the more chemicals they leached. ..." https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/everyday…
Tried to look up "aspirate", but it didn't clarify: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aspirate Note that "twice as much" doesn't mean it's a lot. Nor does the number of chemicals indicate danger.
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Because we need studies (ideally, funded by the same corporations that poison us) to tell us that having increasing quantities of plastic in our blood, lungs and other organs is bad. What happened I wonder to the precautionary principle? Maybe that's going to be our collective lamentation when we crash at warp speed into some sort of great filter.
I get the skepticism, but reality is complicated. Plastic saves lives, conserves energy, and makes the economy faster and better. Outright removal will be nothing short of impossible. Consumers don't want to be inconvenienced. Starbucks couldn't even keep non-plastic straws on without a massive amount of customer complaints. Plastic alternative materials science has a long way to go to even meet the same needs. There…
I bet sourcing all that sand will be a bigger problem than they expect as sand is a rare and nonrenewable resource that's heavily in demand for concrete and sourcing it has all sorts of environmental issues of its own. They should look into replacing that with something that's also cheap waste. Maybe crushed glass would work?
Mixing plastics with asphalt has been tried for roads in India for many years now. There is one stretch near where I live which was done 10+ years ago. There is an official policy on trying this, as a pilot, for any agency that wishes to use it. See: https://www.prakati.in/use-of-plastic-for-road-construction-... The road which I use occasionally seems reasonably good as roads go. Unless you see the boards informing…
I bet sourcing all that sand will be a bigger problem than they expect as sand is a rare and nonrenewable resource that's heavily in demand for concrete and sourcing it has all sorts of environmental issues of its own. They should look into replacing that with something that's also cheap waste. Maybe crushed glass would work?
twenty-five percent of Africa is literally covered in sand. Sand comes in different granularity and compositions, but for concrete this is often irrelevant.