Removing Plastic Waste by Creating Asphalt
8 October 2020
Corporate Communication and Alumni Relations Center (CCARC)
Chiang Mai University is promoting renewable energy and a cleaner environmental under its “Green and Clean Campus” project which encourages garbage separation and management and aims to harness it garbage to create renewable energy.
A budget for “Waste Biomass Management with Complete Cycle of Chiang Mai University” was approved in 2017 for energy production from waste within Chiang Mai University by utilizing the biomass materials such as agricultural and animal waste to produce Biogas for electricity and Bio-methane gas for fueling the transport vehicles within Chiang Mai University.
However plastic waste and how to utilize it still remains a challenge not only for Chiang Mai University but for the nation as well.
The Plastic Waste Management sub-committee under the National Committee of Environment has enabled a “Thailand Public Private Partnership for Plastic and Waste Management project” (PPP) where DOW Co. Ltd. Thailand and Siam Cement Group Co. Ltd. (SCG) are working together with CMU to enable the university to be the first in Thailand to reuse plastic waste in construction materials such as asphalt and paving blocks.
This project is in collaboration with the Office of the University, Energy Research and Development Institute Nakornping and the Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and aims to produce asphalt that can used for road maintenance and parking lots within the campuses of Chiang Mai University.
This project has the potential to reduce plastic waste by 12 tons / year and can produce 6 tons / year of asphalt paving blocks and can produce ready mixed asphalt at 8 tons / year, thus helping Chiang Mai University reach its goal to be a zero waste university.