Pune Cantonment Board banks on plastic solution

Pune: The Pune Cantonment Board has opted for a plastic solution to mend its roads, unlike the Pune Municipal Corporation's massive concreting drive that has cost crores and guzzled litres of water.
The Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) is using a special mixture of bitumen readily available to strengthen its streets and restore dug up roads. Officials claimed that the plastic solution would be implemented only on major thoroughfares.The lanes and bylanes would be restored using normal layering procedures.
The material, known in the industry as polymer modified bitumen 40 (PMB 40), is made with standard bitumen and mixed with polymers. PCB engineers termed it a cost-effective solution to restore roads. A majority of the material is standard bitumen, strengthened with 10% proportion of polymers obtained from treated, disposed plastic.
"Plastic roads are suitable for warmer climates. Such roads are resistant to rain also," a roads department official said.
PCB had layered half-a-kilometre stretch of the road outside Hutchins School near its Golibar Maidan headquarters with PMB 40. Its success prompted the PCB general board to go ahead with the project.
"We found this solution to be cost-effective and less time-consuming compared to other road-restoration methods, such as concreting. Road concreting requires a lot of water and labour. The drainage system also needs to be dealt with and digging to lay future utilities becomes difficult if concrete is used," an official said, adding that road concreting was a huge draw on finances.