R&D plastic: POLYMIX has been chosen by citizens as the best LIFE Environment Project
The project POLYMIX, wherein AIMPLAS, the Plastics Technology Centre, has taken part, received the LIFE Citizens’ Award for the best 2015 LIFE Environment project, during EU Green Week in Brussels, where BREAD4PLA, coordinated by AIMPLAS, was also awarded.
The LIFE Citizens’ Award gives recognition to this project, funded by European funds by means of the Life+ Programme, aiming to obtain innovative asphalt mixtures more resistant and sustainable than conventional ones, thanks to the incorporation of plastic wastes in its production. These are four different types of asphalt, wherein used tyres, polypropylene caps, polyethylene packages and polystyrene hangers have been added to its composition respectively. With the new mixtures, a total of 2 km of a stretch of the M-300 in the approaches to Alcalá de Henares were asphalted.
After a review of the asphalted stretch’s behaviour, the POLYMIX project partners have reached the conclusion that the new asphalt mixtures not only comply with the requirements to be used in road construction, but also obtain a marked improvement in the resistance to plastic deformations with respect to conventional asphalt mixtures. Thus, through its use, the volume of raw materials used is its production is reduced, as well as the maintenance cost, since they have a longer shelf life.
Two candidatures
For the second consecutive year, the public has had the opportunity to vote for the best 2015 LIFE Project from a list of 24 projects selected by experts on Environment, according to strict criteria and wherein there was also BREAD4PLA, another project counting with the participation of AIMPLAS. The award given to POLYMIX was collected by Professor Daniel Castro, project coordinator at the University of Cantabria and technical director at GITECO, in a ceremony held yesterday in The Egg congress centre in Brussels. In this event, five other awards were given to the «Best of the Best» LIFE Nature projects, one award to the «Best of the Best» LIFE Information & Communication projects and five awards to the «Best of the Best» LIFE Environment projects. As a novelty, they all were announced in the ceremony.