Tanks, trains no problem for recycled-plastic bridges

Two new railroad bridges show the power of plastics—recycled plastics, that is.

Axion International Inc., headquartered in New Providence, NJ, just completed two new railroad bridges at the Army’s Fort Eustis in Virgina that are made entirely from 100% recycled post-consumer and post-industrial plastics. The bridges were dedicated in ceremonies on Thursday, May 27, with experts from the Fort Eustis, Axion International Holding Inc. and Centennial Contractors Enterprises Inc., speaking.

Axion International is a green-technology company that designs, develops, and manufactures a new generation of eco-friendly structural building materials through patented technologies developed by scientists at Rutgers University to transform recycled consumer and industrial plastics into a myriad of structural products that are made in U.S. This isn’t the first project the company has completed. Last August, Axion drove a 70-ton M-1 Abrams tank—too heavy for many bridges—repeatedly across a bridge made of Axion’s 100% recycled structural plastics, at Fort Bragg, NC.

Axion International has multiple patents and patents pending for not only polymer blends but also fields of use. Testing on Axion’s materials is done by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Rutgers, the University of Illinois, and the American Assn. of Railroading Test Track. —[email protected]