Brief - The Hustle

Thanks to this startup, your next road trip might be on plastic

Written by Belle Long | Aug 5, 2020 8:18:17 AM

Now you only have to feel marginally bad about those Fiji water bottles you’ve been chugging.

A startup called TechniSoil is repurposing plastic, turning it into cheaper highway asphalt.

Harder, better, faster, stronger

The company unveiled the first plastic-paved stretch of highway in California, to the tune of ~150k bottles per mile.

That might sound like a lot of bottles. But our Trends team found that the plastic-paving supply is plentiful.

The US generated 35.4m tons of plastic in 2017, according to the American Chemistry Council, and 8.4% of it was recycled.

The new material resists potholes and can last 2-3x longer than standard asphalt.

As Barbie once said, “Life in plastic, it’s fantastic.”