“Magorium", a start-up company in Singapore. “Building roads from plastic waste" is a successful solution to the growing global plastic pollution crisis.

Founded in mid-2019, Magorium has developed an innovative breakdown of shopping bags, bottles and other plastic waste into tar-like raw materials that can be used in road construction instead of regular ingredients.

Recently, this bitumen from plastic waste is already being used to build roads. Which is a road in a private area That’s a factory in Tuas and a condominium in Marymount. This is just the beginning. Because the company aims to expand the use of this innovation widely

Oh Chu Xian, Magorium Chief Executive Officer, said, “We have been testing several times. These will give us the comprehensive results we need. ”

Oh Chu Xian said she was inspired to develop this innovation from a road construction company researching green building materials. In addition to seeing the problems of global warming and various pollution caused by plastic waste.

Plastic pollution is one of the most pressing environmental problems in Singapore and the world. This is because the production and consumption of single-use plastics is a huge burden on the world.

Characteristics that are difficult to degrade naturally. Causing plastic waste to pollute the land and the ocean And exacerbate climate change as well.

The 2019 Annual Report by the Center for International Environmental Law states: The global production and burning of plastics will add more than 850 million metric tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

According to the National Environment Agency (NEA), as of 2019 in Singapore, there were about 930,000 tonnes of plastic waste, of which only 37,000 tonnes or 4% were properly recycled.

Moreover The recent COVID-19 situation has also changed consumer behavior in Singapore. Especially online ordering products and food Which has significantly increased the use of disposable plastics Whether from various food packaging, plastic cutlery Including shockproof plastic for parcel delivery

A study published in June found that “For takeaway food and food delivery only, in the past two months, Singapore had 1,334 tons of plastic waste going up after the government announced a ban on eating at restaurants. And schools and offices must be temporarily closed. “

Adriel Ng, Magorium’s Chief Financial Officer, added: “Society is always saying that plastic waste is born because people don’t know how to recycle. But that’s not all, people can actually recycle as much as we want. But if there is no recycling market that just You too have to send plastic waste to incinerators and landfills. Which causes pollution “

Singapore, the only landfill in a landfill It will fill the dumpster by 2035, a decade earlier than estimated.

Magorium technology, developed over nearly four years now, can recycle at least six plastics into bitumen.

Magorium technology decomposes plastic waste into three raw materials: powder, granular and granular, which can be blended to make asphalt.

Oh, said in addition to reusing plastic that has been discarded, which can lead to less contamination in the environment. This innovation also reduces the use of bitumen. Usually obtained from coal, wood and crude oil by 10-20%. In addition, the use of plastics can increase road durability up to 3 years.

“Plastics have many good qualities, such as being waterproof and flexible. So when adding it to the road It will pass on some of these features and make the road more durable, ”added Oh Chu Xian.

Compiled from Channel News Asia
Images from Shutterstock

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