We visited the Plastic Bridge this morning because Jessica felt they may have added a plaque to the bridge at the dedication on Thursday. We did not see anything from the car, so we just drove across and headed back out. Well, today in the Asbury Park press it says there was one added to the bridge. If it is there I missed it. Another visit this weekend is in order.
Guy
First recycled plastic bridge in N.J. opens to traffic
http://www.app.com/app/story/0,21625,1074251,00.html
Published in the Asbury Park Press 10/09/04
By KIRK MOORE
STAFF WRITER
SHAMONG -- In its original form, this would have made one big mess in the woods: around 250,000 plastic milk and juice jugs, plus more than three times as many foam plastic coffee cups.
But recycled, blended and molded into massive black girders and planks, those throw-away containers were made into New Jersey's first all-plastic vehicle bridge, strong enough to support a 36-ton fire truck crossing the upper Mullica River.
Rutgers researchers gathered near Atsion in Wharton State Forest Thursday to dedicate the bridge for Richard Renfree, a Rutgers scientist who worked on the project before his death earlier this year. Now there's an initiative in Shore communities to find other applications for the heavy-duty plastic as beach walkway material, bulkheading and docks.
The new-generation structural polymer plastic, developed by the Rutgers Center for Advanced Materials via Immiscible Polymer Processing, or AMIPP, is produced by Edison-based Polywood. The synthetic lumber is also being used as boardwalk material in Long Branch, said Jennifer Lynch, a research assistant at the Rutgers center.
Plastic recycling technology from Rutgers has been used in earlier projects, such as a small bridge built by Army engineers in 1998 at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. However, that project retained older steel supports for the underlying span.
The Atsion bridge is among a new generation of designs that use plastic in their major structural members as well as the roadway decking. Started in 2001, the project's decking was completed last year and Thursday's ceremonies included attachment of a commemorative plaque, noting the span's place in engineering history.
Shore communities could see more of this material used in beach walkways and docks, instead of the pressure-treated lumber that's been an industry standard for decades. The polymer is highly resistant to weathering and the sun's ultraviolet radiation, and "accelerated weathering" tests in the laboratory indicate the material should survive outdoors for at least 50 years, Lynch said.
Moreover, the plastic lumber won't leach harmful chemicals into soil or water, she added.
"It's perfect for this location because it's not going to damage anything," Lynch said. "It's resistant to mildew, insects, or any kind of termite or marine worm."
Bridge projects near freshwater wetlands, such as an access road to Ocean County College in Dover Township, have required use of expensive tropical hardwoods. Environmental regulators are reluctant to approve treated lumber in places where they think chemicals that preserve the wood may also harm aquatic organisms.
Rutgers experts formulated the new material using two types of plastic.
"It's high-density polyethylene, like you see in milk jugs and detergent bottles," Lynch explained. "The second phase is polystyrene, like foam coffee cups and plastic eating utensils."
Polystyrene's rigid form is also well-known to anyone who's glued together scale model airplane kits. For Rutgers experts, the technical challenge lay in combining polyethylene's resistance to breaking with polystryrene's qualities of hardness.
They came up with a plastic that appears massive and dense, yet is lighter than treated lumber and competitive in cost for commercial projects. Polywood's biggest markets are in plastic railroad ties and structural components, Lynch said.
Under the tongue-and-groove bridge deck, a frame of I-beams provide support, while the entire bridge weighs two or three times less than the traditional wood timber types used to cross Pine Barrens streams, she said. To save money, engineers built the plastic span atop cut-down pilings from an old wooden bridge, which means canoeists and kayakers on the upper Mullica need to haul their boats out and around the new one.
The raw materials used by Polywood to make the bridge components were the equivalent of about 250,000 plastic jugs and 850,000 foam beverage cups, said Rutgers scientist Thomas Nosker. When the bridge decking was completed, it improved fire protection for the western side of the Wharton forest. Without a bridge, firefighters would need to follow nine miles of sand roads to reach the river's remote upper reaches, Lynch said.
