Monday, 21 September 2020
What can you do with a coffee cup after finishing your coffee? Of course you can always recycle it, but what happens then?
What can you do with a coffee cup after finishing your coffee? You can recycle it, of course, but did you know that this kind of waste could soon be used to surface Australian roads?
It sounds unbelievable, but Sydney-based company State Asphalt Services has already started working on it.
For this ambitious project, State Asphalt Services partnered with Simply Cups, a company that specializes in recycling paper and plastic cups. Their partnership was made possible by Closed Loop, an organization that connects businesses that produce waste with businesses that reuse waste.
But how can roads be made out of coffee cups anyway? In reality, traditional materials will still be used, but the thing that binds them together will be made from the elements of a coffee cup (paper, lids, and liners), which have been previously melted and turned into cellulose.
Initial tests have revealed that the resulting substance is incredibly strong and that it could withstand the weight of trucks even better than the existing binding agent.
Australian asphalt company wants to surface roads with recycled coffee cups
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