How do you make a road out of plastic? You turn 20 tonnes of recycled plastic – equivalent to 17,042 plastic bags or 6,000 plastic bottles – into tiny pellets and lay them as a road surface.

The road has been built at the Linkwood Steadings housing development in Elgin, Scotland. The new surface looks just like a traditional road but thanks to the flexible properties of plastic, is actually more durable, the developers said.

It has been made by a company called MacRebur from plastic waste that would otherwise have gone to landfill or incineration.

“The road in Elgin accounts for 20 tonnes of recycled plastic… which would otherwise have been consigned to landfill or incineration,” Dave Main from Springfield Properties said. 

“We hope this pioneering project will inspire other developers in Scotland to follow Springfield’s lead as our product is available across the country as well as the UK and abroad,“Sarah Lakin, Contracts Manager for MacRebur, added.

MacRebur opened its first factory in Dumfries and Galloway in March.