Our growing population and the connectivity that globalization brings to the world has increased the necessity for modern infrastructure. At the same time it takes a huge toll on nature and usually has an immense negative impact on our environment. Building and maintaining billions of kilometers of roads connecting the world is no small feat, and has the expected negative impacts on the planet.
Carbon Crusher is working to reinvent how we connect people in a sustainable manner. The company offers road refurbishment on both gravel and asphalt roads using their proprietary machine and plant-based adhesive.
With their machine, Carbon Crusher is able to conduct on-site refurbishment, grinding up the top layer of the existing road and recycling it. This means there’s no need for material replacement or transportation of waste on and off site. This also decreases the inconvenience that roadwork has on traffic and nearby neighbourhoods.
Traditional methods for road refurbishment use bitumen as a binder, a form of petroleum that has a significant environmental impact. There’re even studies showing that bitumen emits hazardous pollutants under different temperatures and solar conditions years after its initial application.
Carbon Crusher, on the other hand, has developed a solution that uses a byproduct of paper production as their binder, known as lignin. The binder is superior to bitumen, not only because of its flexibility, but also because it has no negative impact on nature, humans, or equipment. Carbon Crusher sources all their lignin from sustainable forestry players, making sure they don’t contribute to deforestation.
They give damaged roads an extension on their lifecycle while high-impact bitumen is swapped for carbon-busting lignin. It’s a neat, efficient and sustainable example of the circular economy in action. Carbon Crusher is scaling its operations into the European market. Aside from its flagship machine, which they plan to run on hydrogen fuel in the near future, the company is also working on software that can track damaged roads via satellite.
For more information on Carbon Crusher check their website or explore more of the interesting innovative solutions within the circular and mobility space.
ClimatePoint AS Universitetsgata 12, 0157 Oslo