Estimation of Carbon Emissions from a Plastic Road Using LCA: A case study of a road in Islamabad

Abstract

Carbon dioxide emissions mitigation from road construction activities is one of potential pathways to deal with climate change. Aiming to estimate the magnitude of carbon dioxide emissions from construction phase of real entire road project. This thesis focuses on calculation of carbon emissions from a road project made from recycle plastic at Ataturk Avenue, Islamabad. The plastic waste quantity in municipal solid waste is increasing due to increase in population and changes in lifestyle. Plastic roads are found to perform better than ordinary roads and therefore use of plastic road construction has gained importance these days. Utilization of waste plastic bituminous mixes has proved that these enhance the properties of mix in addition to solving disposal problems. The emissions from road materials extraction and production, to-site transportation, on-site construction machinery and other phases during road life cycle including road construction, maintenance, recycling of road even make up 5% to 25% of total CO2 emissions from transport and among stages, construction phase was the biggest contributor to road project emissions.(Y. Liu, Wang, & Li, 2017) This research aims at identifying critical factors in calculating carbon emissions from a road construction project. This research uses Life Cycle Assessment as its methodology to calculate the emissions from material, equipment and transport which makes up for the total carbon emission. This study undertakes a comparison between a conventional and plastic mix asphalt road based on carbon emission amount. Inventory analysis is done which shows that the materials used are the major source of carbon emissions. This study helps identify major factors important for calculating carbon emission which are emissions from material, emissions from transport and emissions from equipment. Also, this study shows that plastic road emits 5 ton lesser CO2 emissions than from a conventional road. It suggests this as well that difference between the emissions is from the difference between the quantity of materials due to the addition of waste plastic in plastic mix asphalt.