ENVIRONMENT
Plunge in carbon emissions from lockdowns will not slow climate change (National Geographic)
Emissions may be down, but carbon dioxide still piles up relentlessly in the atmosphere. It’s more important than ever to find climate change solutions, experts say. In May, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere crept up to about 418 parts per million. It was the highest ever recorded in human history and likely higher than at any point in the last three million years.
Environmental Reports
Plunge in carbon emissions from lockdowns will not slow climate change.
That record was broken in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, even though the health crisis has driven one of the largest, most dramatic drops in. CO2 emissions ever recorded. During the peak of the global confinements in the first quarter of the year, daily emissions were about 17 percent below last year’s, according to research published this week in Nature Climate Change. But even such big drops in carbon dioxide emissions will have little impact. On overall CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, says Richard Betts—a scientist at the U.K.’s Met Office—and that’s what matters most for climate change.
SMART MATERIALS – REDUCES CO2 EMMSSIONS BY 97%.
Smart Materials are purposely designed and manufactured to address environmental challenges. All products manufactured by Polyroads are developed to the highest environmental standards. Smart Materials challenge the core fundamentals of conventional road construction, pertaining to design, construction and costs. From an environmental impact assessment, conventional road design and construction contributes significantly to;
- The destruction of our environment through unprecedented mining of aggregate materials for supporting-layers in archaic road designs
- Global warming and climate change through the shear volume and release of CO2 emissions when building these multi-layered roads and stabilizing with cement. To manufacture one tonne of cement, 800Kgs of CO2 is released into our atmosphere.
The Global Environmental Impact of Road Construction
The respected market researchers namely, Freedonia Group, a U.S-based firm tips worldwide sales of construction aggregates to expand by 5.8% a year to 53.2 billion tonnes in the five years to 2017. A substantial chunk of the mined aggregate, such as gravel, limestone and crushed rock are used for road construction.
Aggregate Consumption
India
Professor L.R Kadiyali
Demand for construction aggregates in India amounted to 1.1 billion metric tons in 2006, making the country the third biggest aggregates market in the Asia/Pacific region and fourth largest market in the world (after China, the US and Japan). India consumes enough aggregate annually to build a road around the world (40,000Kms) , every year, 6m wide by 600mm deep.
USA
USGS.GOV
Crushed stone production in 2015 was 1.32 billion metric tons, an increase of 4% over the previous year. The US Bureau of Mines puts aggregate demand at nearly 2.5 billion short tons of natural aggregate in 2000.
South Africa
SABITA
Of the 750 000 km of roads in South Africa approximately 600 000 are un-surfaced gravel roads. Every year, more than 150 million tons of gravel (equal to the size of Table Mountain in Cape Town) are stripped from their roads and have to be replaced.
Global
Freedonia Group
World demand for construction aggregates looks set to grow to 51.7 billion tonnes in 2019
Polyroads – Smart Materials reduces road construction CO2 emissions by 97% !
Smart Materials – Minimise the use of Crushed Stone
SoilTech polymers has been specifically engineered as binders to be used with in-situ materials, thereby reducing conventional road construction aggregate by up to 80%. Not only do SoilTech polymers reduce aggregate requirements, but it also reduces construction time and thereby realises substantial savings in the costs of road construction. SoilTech polymers will strengthen most soils and aggregates. Formerly discarded materials can now be used in the construction and layer-works of the road. Limited amounts of borrow pit or quarry materials need to be brought in. SoilTech layers are flexible and dramatically increase indirect tensile strengths of construction materials, thereby reducing the normal supporting layers that conventional cement stabilized layers require.
- Reduced layer works, means reduced construction time, shorter machine hours, resulting in more economically road construction.
- Engineers are now able to construct roads in remote areas that are void of decent materials for road construction. Furthermore Smart Materials are able to bind, virtually any non-plastic materials into a viable and cost effective wearing course seal.
- Smart Materials are ideal for international donor projects for roads in developing countries.
- Smart Materials have been designed to be environmentally friendly and is the green solution for 21st Century construction projects.
Smart Materials …
the preferred choice
Green House Gases (GHG) – Carbon Emission Pollution
Conventional road design and stabilization consists of a cement stabilized sub-base, preceded by multiple supporting sublayers of aggregate of fill materials. A one kilometer section of road, measuring seven meters wide, with a cement stabilized layer, using 4% of cement per weight of the aggregate, at 150mm deep, will consume approximately 84 tons of cement which equates to 75 tons of CO2 released into the air and that is only from manufacturing of the cement. This figure excludes the calculated the fossil fuel CO2 emissions during the construction of the cement stabilized layer, nor the CO2 emissions released during the curing period of the cement stabilized layer.