The awareness of climate change has become a focal point of scientific development in the 21st century. Both producers and consumers have been trying to reduce the carbon footprint of human activity, and this has led to the increased use of sustainable solutions. These sustainable solutions can be described in two groups: pre-consumption, using renewable resources, such as bamboo; and post-consumption, such as recycled plastics. Both of these types of solutions result in lower carbon footprint emissions and reduce impact on climate change. Given the higher maintenance costs and destructive nature of using wood ties, there is the potential to utilize a more sustainable material. HDPE ties are composed of recycled plastic offering both performance and environmental advantages for use as railroad crossties versus the widely used wood ties that are often troublesome in warm, moist soils, where biological organisms can attack wood ties and greatly shorten their service life. Plastic crossties have the ability to divert considerable amounts of waste from landfills if used on the several million crossties that are replaced each year by the railroads. This paper examines the future of plastic ties, utilizing several case studies.


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    Title :

    Sustainable Solutions for Railroad Trackwork


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    Third International Conference on Urban Public Transportation Systems ; 2013 ; Paris, France



    Publication date :

    2013-10-09




    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




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