Dutch paved with recycled toilet paper

The town of Friesland in the Netherlands has a bike road about 1km long, paved with . used toilet paper.

Rather, the Netherlands used cellulose extracted from recycled toilet paper as an additive for asphalt (tar) to make the pavement porous, reduce slippery and absorb water faster.

This is significant, because the Netherlands is a relatively humid country, with a rainfall of approximately 70 to 90 cm per year making the road surface wet and slippery, endangering people on the road.

Each year, the Netherlands emits about 180,000 tons of toilet paper. This paper is sent to wastewater treatment plants. Here, it is filtered out and retained solid, while sludge is dried and burned. In addition to emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide, this destruction also destroys many valuable resources in wastewater, including cellulose.

Toilet paper is made of wood or recycled paper, so the quality of the fibers is very high.

Toilet paper is made of wood or recycled paper, so the quality of the fibers is very high. However, since cellulose from waste water has been exposed to human feces, it is not possible to legally use other consumer products.

Carlijn Lahaye, director of CirTec company, co-developed the technology for extracting and cleaning cellulose fibers, said: 'Technically, cellulose can be used to make pizza boxes, but do you want your pizza? Do you wrap in cellulose from waste water? '.

As for asphalt, any prolonged pathogen cannot survive at the extremely high temperature of the plastic mixing process.

Chris Reijken, a wastewater treatment specialist, a member of the project monitoring team, said: 'If you look at this road surface, you wouldn't expect it to come from sewage. You can touch it, you can use it without any problem '.

It has been over a year since the asphalt made from toilet paper was used in Friesland. It's still working well and it's hard to distinguish between this part and the rest of the road.

Last May, this mixture was used to reinforce the sea dike in Ameland, an island of the Frisian archipelago. In June, it is used to slice up the parking lot of the children's zoo in Groningen. The city of Amsterdam has also expressed interest in using cellulose from wastewater for city roads.

Michiel Schrier, governor of Friesland province said: 'The idea of ​​asphalt is made of toilet paper so strange to the people. But when they rode on the road and felt it, they could see that it was just like ordinary plastic road. '

It is still too early to say whether recycled paper products will become popular, but at least, they have had a good start in the Netherlands.