First steel road constructed under ‘Waste to Wealth’ in Surat

SURAT, Gujarat: As part of a research project, a first-of-its-kind steel road from discarded steel waste has been made in the Hazira Industrial Area, Surat. The first-of-its-kind steel road project is being co-sponsored by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) with assistance from NITI Aayog and the Ministry of Steel. The project is a move forward in the direction of Waste to Wealth and Clean India campaign of the Government of India.

The newly constructed road stretches up to one kilometre and consists of six lanes and it is made of processed steel aggregate in place of traditional materials. Due to the usage of discarded steel, the road thickness has been reduced by up to 30 per cent, as per CSRI, which could greatly reduce the cost of road construction. It is claimed that this new road material has the capacity to reduce road accidents and damage during monsoon season.

As per the data estimate, every year India generates nearly 19 million tonnes of steel waste which will reach up to 50 million tonnes by the year 2020. Such kinds of projects will help in waste management under the concept of waste to wealth and will also help in strengthening the roads in future.

Satish Pandey, Principal Scientist, CRRI, noted, “This 1-kilometre-long road at Hazira Port in Gujarat was earlier in bad shape due to trucks carrying several tons of weight but under one experiment this road was made entirely from steel waste, now more than 1,000 trucks, 18 to 30 every day are passing with tons of weight, but the road remains the same.”