Advancing the circular economy is a pillar of Dow’s 2025 Sustainability Goals, and the company is on a relentless pursuit of solutions. One area of focus for these solutions is used plastics. As the world’s largest producer of polyethylene—a key ingredient used to create high-quality plastics—Dow recognizes its responsibility and opportunity to minimize plastic lost to the environment and maximize its potential as a reusable resource.
Only 9% of the 9 billion–10 billion tons of plastic generated since 1950 has been recycled. Curbing this trend is an ambitious undertaking: there is no silver bullet, and this isn’t a one-company or one-government issue. That’s why Dow works with many partners on a variety of projects designed to advance the circular economy and minimize plastic waste. Such projects include creating recyclable packaging for applications, for which recyclability was previously impossible, and partnering with organizations to build waste management infrastructure.In the Great Lakes Bay Region in Michigan, Dow and its project partners used recycled plastics to modify asphalt for roads and parking lots. How? Through Dow’s ELVALOYTM asphalt modification technology and the unique contributions the partnering organizations brought to the collaboration to utilize recycled plastic modified asphalt (RPMA).For the Michigan project, Dow used more than 10,400 pounds of recycled plastics— equivalent in weight to more than 769,500 plastic grocery bags—and covered 5.5 lane miles of asphalt roads and 30,500 square yards of parking surfaces. When combined with a similar project in Freeport, Texas, Dow’s RPMA paving projects in North America have incorporated more than 12,086 pounds of plastic, equivalent in weight to approximately 889,500 plastic grocery bags. In Michigan, Dow worked with Winpak— which supplied plastic scrap—and Bit Mat Products of Michigan, K-Tech Specialty Coatings, and Central Asphalt to pave four roads in Midland County, as well as parking lots at the Global Dow Center and at Saginaw Valley State University. This was the second phase of Dow’s RPMA road projects in North America, following the successful construction of two roads at the company’s Freeport, Texas, facility.For the Michigan projects, Dow used a type of recycled plastic that is commonly found in food packaging. The plastic films were collected and melted into a pellet shape, and the pelletized plastics were then sent to local asphalt plants where they were added into a binder and eventually into asphalt, mixing the materials into a formulation to match project specifications.Before the U.S. projects, asphalt modified by Dow’s ELVALOYTM technology debuted in Depok City, Indonesia, in 2017, after the Indonesian government announced that it intended to do its part to reduce plastic waste in the ocean by 70% by 2025. In total, Dow has now incorporated recycled plastic into roads and parking lots in Europe, Latin America, North America, and Asia Pacific.In Michigan and around the world, Dow works with local stakeholders, including recyclers, asphalt producers, governments, and NGOs that share the company’s vision of developing valuable end markets for used plastics. Local recyclers provide the used plastics, which Dow and local road developers use to modify asphalt to fit road specifications.Dow is encouraged by the success of its RPMA work in Michigan and Texas, and it is excited about the potential for more projects using ELVALOYTM technology as a polymer modifier for asphalt throughout the U.S. and other global regions. The company vets paving opportunities on both private properties and public roads with equal enthusiasm. Dow will continue to perform extensive road testing and monitoring to evaluate and optimize the technology so that it can be adopted further, in addition to continuing to explore and develop potential new endmarkets that make circularity possible for plastics.
