The road to sustainability: the superhighway built from paper waste instead of cement
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
At first glance the new stretch of motorway being built in the municipality of La Font de la Figuera near the Spanish city of Valencia looks like any other. But hidden secrets lie beneath its surface.
Thanks to pioneering tech, Spanish contractor Acciona is using paper ash to replace the cement that would normally go into the road’s construction to improve durability.
"In road construction, we need the strongest materials. And for that, we usually use cement. This paper ash doesn’t just look like cement. It meets all the technical requirements of cement, but it’s also more environmentally friendly," explains Acciona's R&D Project Manager, Juan Jose Cepria Pamplona.
Acciona believes using paper ash will enable it to significantly cut its carbon footprint.
"The potential impact of the project is enormous. We have calculated that we can save 65-75% of the associated CO2 emissions. And by 'scaling up' we could save up to 18,000 tonnes of cement per year, says Juan Jose.
But the benefit is not only carbon reduction. By using paper ash – that’s burnt waste paper and pulp that can no longer be recycled – the company is turning rubbish, that would most likely end up in landfill, into a resource.
The motorway in La Font de la Figuera is one of three pilot projects, but Juan Jose says Acciona has big plans for the future.
Our intention is to scale up and to extend its [paper ash] use nationally and eventually replicate it internationally," he says
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One mile of road at a time ... and now for a word from the naysayers?
Can they also use the heat from burning it to provide power for something else?
It's Europe, so I would think so.
I like this. Cement requires a massive amount of energy to make. Burning paper creates energy. As long as the cement you get from the paper is high quality it's a win win win.
It takes burning to produce this type of cement , which is a component of concrete This produces CO2
I fail to see how this paper ash process can compare to the hardness and resistance to wear of regular concrete, and how it produces less greenhouse gases.
A cement is a binder , a substance used for construction that sets , hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate ) together. Cement mixed with fine aggregate produces mortar for masonry, or with sand and gravel , produces concrete. Concrete is the most widely used material in existence and is behind only water as the planet's most-consumed resource. [2]
You might have to do some research on the molecular properties of paper ash. For example, one can start here :
I would not dismiss an idea simply because you do not understand it.
I didn't dismiss it at all...just wanted more information...which you provided.
Thanks!
Brillant, anything that helps the environment is worth pursuing.
Interesting seed. Thanks.
I get tired of the usual God, guns and abortions nonsense.
The interesting thing about traditional concrete is that it literally never stops hardening due to the long term chemical reaction in the materials. I wonder if this mixture has the same property.
Its hard to imagine what infrastructure will look like 50 years from now. I imagine that virtually all vehicles will be electric and that roadways will be designed to produce solar power which will wirelessly charge the vehicles traveling on it.
A little bit of trivia: The concrete used in the Hoover Dam would take up to 125 years to cure naturally. The dam itself can supposedly last 10,000 years. Quite a feat of engineering.