A parking lot paved with post-consumer plastics

A Canadian food retailer used a new asphalt pavement mixture that included millions of post-consumer plastic bags

Spotted: Canadian food retailer, Sobeys Inc., has opened a new store in Timberlea, launching along with it one of Canada’s first parking lots to be paved entirely with post-consumer plastics. More than 6 million plastic checkout bags were diverted from local landfills to become part of the mixture.

It feels and looks like a regular parking lot, the difference being what has gone into it. Sobeys worked closely with Goodwood Plastic Products for four months to develop the new asphalt pavement mixture. The durability of the site, in face of Canadian winters, was tested through insense thawing and refreezing.

“Projects like this represent the changes we all want to see — reduced single-use plastics, more reuse and increased recycling of plastic waste,” Vittoria Varalli, Sobeys’ vice president of Sustainability, said in a statement.

In a further push towards plastic reduction, the grocery chain will be phasing out plastic bags in its stores across Canada in February.