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Performance and environmental impacts of waste plastic-modified asphalt pavement: a comprehensive review
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This review examined recent research on using waste plastic to modify asphalt pavement and found that it generally improves road durability while reducing harmful emissions during production. However, challenges remain around plastic-bitumen compatibility and potential microplastic release during the pavement's lifetime, and the authors call for more standardized environmental assessments to ensure the approach is truly sustainable.
Plastic waste has become a major global concern due to its adverse environmental and human health impacts. Incorporating waste plastic into asphalt pavements provides a sustainable solution that reduces pollution while enhancing pavement performance. This review synthesises recent advances (2021–2025) in plastic-modified bitumen and asphalt by integrating engineering performance, environmental risk, and life cycle assessment (LCA) perspectives. It develops a clear framework that links material performance with environmental emissions and overall sustainability, and highlights key research gaps related to materials utilisation, microplastic release, recyclability and LCA. Findings indicate that plastic modification improves rutting resistance, fatigue life, and moisture durability, and reduces emissions of harmful substances during production and service, which aligns with SDG 12, 13, and 14. In addition, the integration of waste plastics into asphalt enables cleaner material pathways by minimising the reliance on virgin polymers and mitigating emissions during production and application stages. However, challenges such as poor plastic-bitumen compatibility and limited low-temperature flexibility persist. The review further highlights the need for standardised datasets, region-specific LCAs, and long-term field monitoring to ensure reliable environmental assessments. Overall, this study provides an updated synthesis and research roadmap for materials scientists, pavement engineers, and policymakers to advance the sustainable design, evaluation, and large-scale implementation of waste plastic-modified asphalt pavements within a circular-economy framework.
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This review provides a comprehensive analysis of using waste plastics to modify asphalt for road construction, covering six major plastic types and both wet and dry processing methods. The study evaluated 42 peer-reviewed studies and found that integrating waste plastics into asphalt can enhance pavement performance while promoting circular economy principles, though environmental considerations such as microplastic release need further assessment.
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This life cycle assessment examined the environmental impact of incorporating recycled plastics as an additive in asphalt pavement production. The study found that plastic-modified asphalt can reduce the environmental burden of plastic waste disposal while potentially improving pavement performance, though impact trade-offs across the life cycle must be considered.
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When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.