UTA’s plastic-infused asphalt may pave the way for cleaner, tougher roads

ARLINGTON, Texas — In the basement of a UTA building, a steel wheel hums against asphalt. Water hisses, and you can hear it — the sound of a solution being put to the test.

For years, the world has struggled to bury its plastic problem. Every year, humanity produces more than 400 million tons of plastic, most of it used just once. Nearly 80% of it ends up in landfills or the environment, where it lingers for centuries. Texas alone generates hundreds of thousands of tons of plastic waste each year — bags, bottles, lids — too much to recycle, too much to ignore.

“We are taking one problem to solve another problem,” said UTA Professor Dr. Sahadat Hossain, Director of the Solid Waste Institute for Sustainability, watching the lab machine simulate years of heat, water, and traffic.

Hossain and his students have been mixing that plastic waste into asphalt, creating pavement that is tougher, more resilient, and kinder to the Earth.

“We are simulating the actual road condition,” Hossain explained, smiling. “We are going to change roads across Texas, and we are going to do it across America. I have zero doubt about it.”

It started on campus with two parking lots paved with the team’s plastic‑infused recipe in 2023. Those early results caught the attention of TxDOT, which just paved nearly a mile of highway in Rockwall with the same mix along SH-205. More districts in Amarillo, Laredo, and Fort Worth are next, Hossain said.

DFW Airport has also shown interest, Hossain mentioned, adding that planes carrying passengers and bags at 175,000 pounds are causing enough long-term damage to runways. 

Graduate student Ishraq Faruk pointed out the materials laid out in the lab. 

“Water bottles, coffee lids, grocery bags here — this is the plastic that ends up most in the environment,” he said. “And here we’ve tested the samples altogether.”

With 80,000 miles of highway and billions of dollars spent on maintenance each year, stronger roads mean more than just savings for Texas. They mean less plastic waste choking landfills and oceans.

Hossain estimates it might lead to a 50% savings in terms of road maintenance. 

UTA’s students have even helped pave a road in Bangladesh, and Hossain said he’s heard from places as far away as Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, curious about what they’ve built. In the corner of the lab, that steel wheel kept turning, grinding away at the question of whether trash can hold us up instead of weighing us down.

Samples of standard asphalt had ruts, cracks, and were rotted away. The new, plastic-infused samples showed barely a scratch. For now, this all seems like a rare stretch of road where everyone wins: a little relief for the planet, and a big first step for the students paving the way.

“Better roads!” Hossain said with his students, grinning. Better roads indeed — and maybe a better future, stitched together from what we once threw away.