My wife told me about the difficulties with recycling plastic, and that so little of it can be re-used for the same purpose. Most of it can unfortunately only be used for utility purposes such as benches, garbage cans, etc. Immediately I thought of its potential use to minimize collission impact on our roads. We’ve all seen how concrete pillars are wrapped in collapsible plastic so that head-on collisions will be somewhat dampened. We’ve also seen big plastic containers filled with sand or water and placed in front of highway bifurcations, so that high speed head-on collision impact will be somewhat dissipated by the sand or water. Well, how about these next uses for low grade recycled plastic?

• Instead of using sand or water, this low-grade, non-tensile strength recycled plastic, made from grocery bags and other cheap recycled materials, could be used instead of the sand or plastic. It would be naturally porous and somewhat elastic. I think it would work well to dissipate the impact and reduce the deceleration force encountered by a vehicle.
• Different iterations of it could be used inside vehicle bumpers as well – instead of the foam or polystyrene currently used.
• It could also be used in highway railguards, not to replace the steel bumpers but to bolster them and reduce damage on a car, should it bounce off the rails.