On State Highway 205 in Rockwall, a suburb east of Dallas, engineers paved a 3,500-foot stretch of road using about 4.5 tons of recycled plastic mixed directly into the asphalt. The project, led by Sahadat Hossain, a civil engineering professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, replaces a portion of the petroleum-based bitumen that normally binds asphalt with melted plastic made from discarded bags, bottles and other everyday waste. After years of laboratory testing and smaller pavement trials, the May 2025 project brought the technology onto an active Texas highway. The field trial is intended to provide engineers with practical data that laboratory experiments cannot fully capture, including changes in pavement strength and durability over time. The team is now watching how the material performs under regular traffic, heavy vehicles and Texas heat.
Get breaking news anytime, anywhere. Download the TOI app now!
