URETEK - Your Green Solutions

While a broad range of benefits regarding the use of polymer injection technology for infrastructure stabilization, sealing, and leveling are often discussed, other ancillary benefits are often overlooked. As a colleague of mine has been coined for saying, “we will save you on contract dollars only SOME of the time, but we will save you in Production costs ALL of the time.” Production costs are the things that alternative solutions would require, like the costs for excavation, hauling, dump fees, traffic control, downtime for commuters or pedestrians, or other hidden fees that will spike up the costs of an individual road project. Outside of the key benefits of the rapid-setting polymer for some of these ancillary costs, the main point to observe in this article is the hidden benefit: its environmental impact. The benefits to the environment that our polymers provide come from the composition of the polymer, the reduction in the previously mentioned production costs, and the green energy solution it provides for the projects we undertake.

The hydro-insensitive polymers we utilize are a water-blown agent, which has been tested extensively in accordance to various construction standards in accredited laboratories, with accredited processes. Explored most recently in the release of Los Angeles Research Division’s LARR#26197 (released September 1, 2020), it is explained that the polymers contain no hydroflourocarbons or chlorofluorocarbons in their composition. In fact, there are no ozone-depleting chemicals whatsoever in the composition of the polymer. The only concern would be the CO2 gas put off in miniscule amounts, a concern for health and safety only in confined spaces. A toxicity testing report was issued by EA Engineering in 2014, exploring the toxicity of the polymers on living organisms, and displayed that the product “complies with NELAC Standards” and is considered to be non-toxic. This allowed the product to also be certified with its NSF-61 in 2016, allowing the product to be used in, on, near, and around potable water. Thereby, the product itself has no carcinogens, no toxins, and no long-term negative health or environmental effects (except the product does not biodegrade, which you wouldn’t WANT it to, given the application).

There are ancillary expenses and therefore benefits to using the polymer injection technology which provides a significant impact on the environment. Most projects are accomplished with only one or two production trucks, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions of excavators, haulers, and material transport trucks. Because the projects are completed most often within only a couple weeks, the carbon footprint of each individual project is additionally minimized, as all of those heavy trucks and equipment are not cycling in and out of a jobsite for multiple weeks at a time. There is no excavation of concrete or asphalt to be recycled, requiring to add to the thousands of hours of burning coal or other ozone-damaging plants to recycle concrete or asphalt, and also reduces the necessity to add to the local landfills – zero excavation means nearly zero waste. Zero hazardous chemicals to be specially handled and a significant reduction in pollutants of both construction waste and the hauling required to dispose of them.

Finally, looking a the overall projects themselves, a vast majority of the work performed for infrastructure includes the leveling and stabilization of pavements, asphalt or concrete, or extending their life via stabilization, or arresting the first heave effect of freeze/thaw cycling. It comes as no surprise that level, clean roads provide smoother rides in vehicles than disjointed or fractured ones. A study in Greenhouse Gas Emissions was released by CalTrans in August of 2020 which revealed Transportation section of infrastructure emits almost 175 million metric tons of CO2, almost double each industry section below it, and the greatest increases have been in private commuter traffic. I would wager the degradation of highway and infrastructure conditions would contribute to this astounding statistic, as the wear on the vehicles due to poor highway conditions will create greater CO2 emissions.

It’s a concept first presented to me at a Grinding and Grooving seminar in Phoenix back in 2016. A vehicle traveling at constant speed will emit a specific amount of CO2 (CA having strict regulations to help control this). But vehicles get less mpg in the streets rather than highways, because the way Newton’s laws work on objects at rest, requires greater energy to bring a vehicle to speed from a stop rather than maintaining a constant speed. This overwork of the engineer results in greater emission of CO2, which impacts the carbon footprint and GHG expulsion of the vehicle. So take a vehicle traveling at constant speed on a highway, which encounters a wavy asphalt road or disjointed concrete pavement. When the vehicle encounters the inconsistency, the shocks will compress, and the releasing of the spring creates a “bounce” in the vehicle. The bouncing impacts the work on the engine, allowing the vehicle to “back off” of its constant, but when the vehicle “touches down” again causes an overwork; this results in higher emission of CO2, greater carbon footprint, and further introduction of ozone depleting chemicals into the environment, not to mention the safety risks of sudden movement.

The use of polymer injection technology provides “Green Energy Solutions” by its composition, ancillary benefits, and the problems it resolves when utilizing this technology. It is a faster, cheaper, equally effective alternative in most instances to ripping and replacing, and provides a permanent solution in its applications rather than a cosmetic “patch and go” alternative. The applications for soil stabilization are being constantly discovered, with a wide array of clients from DOT’s Municipalities, DOD, and many more. Ask me more about how we can provide these solutions to soil problems that exist on your project site!