The Green Road

The Green Road is Bhutan’s first and only company that utilizes waste plastics in blacktopping roads. The company since its inception in October 2014 has blacktopped 160 kilometers of roads and reused 850 tons of waste plastics replacing import of 850 tons of bitumen from India. 850 tons of bitumen costs up to Nu 600 million. Minimising resource use (costly bitumen import & substitution with waste plastic), has been the pivotal theme in this circular economy model and this is being achieved through designing out waste and pollution and keeping products and materials in use. The project has also brought benefits in terms of better and durable roads,(cost savings in repair and maintenance (road life extended by 5 years over conventional 1yr guarantees) and freeing of landfill space and associated environmental impacts The project is a direct answer to the growing menace of plastics in the economy, landfill space constraints, lingering environmental impacts of plastics, unsustainable SCP patterns, concomitant pollution, increased road traffic and increasing cost of repair and maintenance of roads in Bhutan. Sustainability principles have been built both into the project design at inception as well its evolution from being a waste management start- up to a full-fledged road contracting set up. The start-up took off as a volunteer driven waste collection company collecting waste plastic from households, industries, and landfills, segregating it, and supplying to roads department along with the technical knowhow of plastic roads. With bank loans, the start-up added an asphalt plant and became a private sustainable business entrepreneur engaged in all operations of plastic roads from collection of wastes to road development.