In 2021, Shanghai used 6,000 milk bottles to fight plastic waste; the result became China's 1st plastic road, turning hard-to-recycle bottles into useful paving material

Shanghai’s “Milk Bottle Road” demonstrates how difficult-to-recycle plastic can be redirected toward useful infrastructure. Developed through a partnership between Dow and Shiny Meadow, the project used more than 6,000 used milk bottles and other plastic waste in a polymer-modified asphalt road at East China University of Science and Technology’s Xuhui Campus. Enabled by Dow’s ELVALOY™ RET asphalt modification technology, the project gave contaminated milk bottles another purpose while supporting a more circular approach to plastic use.