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PLASTIC THAT'S FANTASTIC FOR BRIDGES
ASEE Prism, Mar 2004
THERE STANDS in New Jersey a 56-foot-long bridge composed of approximately 100,000 polystyrene coffee cups and 80,000 plastic bottles. And cars drive on it. Really. Well, perhaps there are fewer cups and a few thousand plastic eating utensils in the mix as well, but in the end, the bridge really is made entirely of recycled plastic. The one-lane bridge crosses the Mullica River in New Jersey's Pine Barrens region. It replaced a wooden bridge a little more than a year ago.
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Two Rutgers University materials engineers, Thomas J. Nosker and Richard W. Renfree, are responsible. They succeeded in inventing a durable and strong building material by blending two recycled plastics that, on their own, wouldn't hold a child, let alone a car or truck: highdensity polyethylene (HDPE) and polystyrene. HDPE, used to make bottles for things like detergents and water, is flexible. Polystyrene, used for things like coffee cups, hangers, and disposable utensils, is brittle.
Mixed at a ratio of roughly 65 percent HDPE and 35 percent polystyrene, however, the plastics form a surprisingly robust and versatile material.
The pair has licensed the technology to Polywood, a New Jersey company that initially used it to make picnic tables and park benches, before venturing into bridge construction. It was first used to partially construct bridges in Missouri and New York. The New Jersey bridge is the first constructed entirely of the material. It is lightweight and inexpensive: the Mullica River span cost just $75,000. An equivalent wooden bridge would cost $350,000.
Environmentalists should love it because it's free of the chemicals used to repel pests from wooden bridges. Those chemicals are environmental pollutants. There's also the benefit of diverting junked plastics from landfills. In addition, wooden bridges -there arc 500,000 of them in the United States - typically last just five years. Their plastic replacements should last 10 times longer.
Nosker says other bridge projects are in the offing, but it's too early to announce them. Other potential uses, he says, include docks and backyard decks. "Yon can't use treated wood any more. Kids who play on it have 10 times the risk of certain cancers." Ultimately, Nosker's convinced the plastic is strong enough for use in major highway bridges.
One drawback: To keep costs reasonable, it's made from a mix of products, regardless of color. The result is a gray-green hue that Nosker admits is ugly. So carbon black is added to the mix. Like Henry Ford's Model T, you can have a plastic bridge in any color you want. So long as it's black.
Copyright American Society for Engineering Education Mar 2004
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