Asklemmy

43851 readers

660 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

123

Are there any green alternatives to asphalt in development? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by falkerie71@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

84 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Asphalt used on road surfaces are byproducts from fossil fuel. With the ultimate goal of eliminating the use of fossil fuel to combat climate change, are there any good alternatives for road surfaces? I don't think I've ever heard of a viable replacement of asphalt in the works, or even a plan to replace it in any environmental discussions before. At least, not enough for me to notice.

Extented question would be: what are some products derived from fossil fuel that are used in everyday life, but still lack viable alternatives you don't see enough discussions about?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Rouxibeau@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Roads wear. Plastic dust getting spread everywhere is probably a bad thing.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's true, but AFAIK asphalt roads don't tend to produce a fine dust (rather, the tires and mufflers do), so there should be some kind of plastic resin that would wear a similar way.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Then we’ve got big chunks of plastic everywhere.

Trouble is that kind of gradual wear pretty much guarantees the material is coming off in tiny chunks that are basically dust.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hmm. Usually when I see roads break, it's more of a disintegration into chunks situation. I really though I watched a video where they vacuumed up dust from alongside a road.

If microplastics are going to be made, that is kind of an issue. Maybe it's still worth it, or maybe we have to pick an alternative. I guess worst case we could just go to all gravel roads, and it would be slow but you would get there.

[–] Rouxibeau@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's a great solution actually, you should de-emphasize cars and put in more trains and infrastructure for local individualized personal vehicles like bikes, ebikes, electric scooters, and even pedestrians.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Aren't bike paths usually asphalt too? They definitely are where I live.

Rail would work I guess, and mass transit is better than personal cars for any number of reasons, but we'd have to put in a lot of rail and abandon all the significant road infrastructure built up. I've mostly stanned buses in the past for that reason.

[–] Rouxibeau@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

They can be anything, even asphalt. Concrete, gravel, dirt.

Bikes won't wear asphalt or anything else as fast as a high speed multi ton vehicle will though.