Saudi’s KAUST launches Green Roads Initiative to pave the way toward a sustainable future

Saudi’s KAUST launches Green Roads Initiative to pave the way toward a sustainable future

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THUWAL — On April 1, 2022, hundreds of volunteers from KAUST and the broader community in Thuwal gathered to remove waste from verges on a section of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) to Jeddah Highway in a coordinated event led by KAUST’s Strategic National Advancement’s (SNA) Social Responsibility team as part of KAUST’s “Green Roads” initiative.

The Green Roads initiative marks KAUST’s unwavering commitment to developing a greener future through the sustainable development of road infrastructure. The initiative which was developed in collaboration with Dow Chemical and NAPCO, aims at protecting the environment through a framework that encompasses the four “R”s: Reduce, Remove, Reuse, and Recycle.

Plastic waste collected will be used to demonstrate the potential of an innovative process technology that allows plastic to manufacture into sustainable bitumen using a conventional modifier. Following the event, the goal is to construct a road right in the heart of KAUST with the new sustainable road material.

During the Green Roads event, volunteers removed waste from the side of Highway 55 — stretching across a total distance of 90 kilometers — between the KAUST and Dhahban junctions. Building on Dow’s (Recycled polymer modified asphalt — RPMA) process technology, and Napco Recom’s