This month I have an
interesting person who has brought a sea of change in the way plastic wastes
are treated in the country using methods in which the no-biodegradable waste
becomes useful rather than an environmental hazard. He is Rajagopalan
Vasudevan, a 73 year old professor from Tamilnadu state from Madurai district
is popularly known as the “Plastic Man” who had devised method to reuse plastic
waste to construct roads and the technology has been provided to the Government
of India for free. This method has been
used to lay around 5,000 kilometers of the road across 11 states.
Rajagopalan
Vasudevan is serving as a dean, department of chemistry, at Thiagarajar College
of Engineering, Madurai where he joined after completing his PhD at Madras
University. He says that plastics have become common man’s friend and finds its
use in every field. The consumption expected to be around 12 million tones and
nearly 50 percent of the plastic consumed is used for packing including carry
bags, cups, thermocoles and foams. These materials are manufactures using poly
vinyl chloride and once its used are thrown out or littered. They mix with Municipal
Solid waste, as they are non-biodegradable; the disposals are a problem and
contribute for environmental pollution.
He says that the
waste can be shredded into small pieces, added to the stone, melted, coated
over the stone in just 30 seconds. The
mix is used for road construction, from rural roads to National High ways all
types of roads can be laid using this technique. According to Mr Rajagopalan
use of each tone of plastic waste avoids the entry of 3 tonnes of Co2 into the
atmosphere, which otherwise results in global warming.
According to him
20,000 kms of roads are being laid across the country using plastic tar. Both the
government departments and private parties in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry,
Maharashtra, Goa, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Shillong and other places
used plastic in laying roads. The plastic tar road life is twice compared to
traditional ones and maintenance is also easy says Rajagopalan. He has been awarded
Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour in the country.
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Fabulous Genevive - this sounds so great in using chopped up plastic and adding to stone to make roads that last longer! Rajagopalan Vasudevan deserves his high civilian honour. Thank you for sharing this story.
ReplyDeleteThanks Susan I was so glad to find out about Rajagopalan and truly he deserves the award for his innovative way of dealing with plastic waste.
DeleteGreat! It's going to be critical to find new ways to handle the vast amounts of existing plastics in the world. Any way we can find to get creative is amazing. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteWe have now dependent so much on the plastic usage, it will take a longer time to totally ban the usage... I think rajagopalan has found a way out in reusing plastic. Thank you for being here and appreciate your comment.
DeleteThat's such a fabulous initiative that has multi-prong benefits. Kudos to Mr Rajagopalan. Thanks for sharing this amazing story, Genevive!
ReplyDeleteThank you shilpa, am glad to come across this person and it my pleasure to share.
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