Several years ago, I mentioned that some of the recycled plastic, unusable for other purposes, was being used in making composite railroad ties. That was good news to me, as such ties not only are a good use for such plastic but also the ties last much longer than wooden ties. I tried to check with Burlington-Northern at the time to see if any such ties were being used in our area. They informed me they couldn’t as it was a trade secret.
Now, a recent article in the recent Resource Recycling newsletter caught my attention as it talks again about such composite railroad ties. The article featured a Louisiana manufacturer of composite rail ties and a consumer of mixed plastic bales from residential and commercial recycling programs. This company uses from 25 million to 35 million pounds of recovered plastic each year in its 145,000-square-foot building. In my opinion, that's a very good use for such plastic since China stopped importing most recycled plastic.
The company not only makes composite railroad ties, but also construction matting using such recycled plastic. It is studying also using it on parking bumpers and fence posts. They receive the bales of number 3-7 recycled plastics from material recovery facilities and also bales of mixed residential plastic (MRP). They want to assure the folks who recycle the MRP that it is being put to very good use and they can use all they can get.
