Jakarta. Petrochemical firm Chandra Asri Group recently won an award at the Satu Inspirasi gala dinner in Jakarta on Thursday.

Chandra Asri Group took home the award for the environmental conservation and renewable energy category. The award recognized the group’s asphalt road initiative.

According to Chandra Asri Group’s circular economy and partnership manager Nicko Setyabudi, the plastic asphalt road is a testament to the company’s efforts to plastic waste management and environmental conservation efforts. This innovation started as a follow-up to the Public Works Ministry’s research which mixed low-value plastic waste with asphalt. The initiative does not only help manage the plastic at the landfills, but it also boosts the road’s durability by up to 40 percent.

"It has good prospects. We tried it ourselves initially in our factory. After it had satisfactory results, we replicated it to other places in collaboration with related stakeholders," said Nicko.

In the process, this chemical and infrastructure solutions company uses 2 million used plastic bags weighing three tons as an asphalt mixture to be applied in an area of ​​6,372 m2. Chandra Asri Group has expanded this plastic asphalt road use to other regions. 

Chandra Asri Group has helped build plastic asphalt roads spanning 120.8 kilometers in the country. This initiative has managed more than 1,000 tons of plastic waste from landfills by end-2023. Chandra Asri Group started out implementing the plastic asphalt road from Cilegon before expanding to Tegal, Semarang, Kudus, and Garut. Chandra Asri Group is planning to further expand this initiative, according to Nicko.

The company also encourages stakeholders from both the government and the private sector to be involved in this initiative. To this end, Chandra Asri Group in partnership with the ASEAN Center of Excellence on Smart City (ASECH) and Jimbaran Hijau launched a showcase on plastic asphalt roads in Jimbaran Hijau, Bali. This showcase became a learning center for the development of plastic asphalt. The showcase also allows policymakers to learn more about how they can turn low-value plastic bags into asphalt mixture.