A case study in Europe referred to the potential release of microplastics from geosynthetic applications

The theme of microplastic emissions is one of the focuses of possible environmental concerns when using geosynthetics (as geotextiles, geogrids, geomembranes, and so on) in the civil, environmental and geotechnical engineering applications. After a general introduction on the potential release of microplastics from geosynthetic applications in soil, a specific case history will be presented. In particular, for the construction of a new aircraft parking apron at the Ostend airport in Belgium, a relevant amount of gravel has been replaced with an appropriate woven geotextile for stabilizing the ground. The initial consideration for this decision was essentially due to the important economic and ecological advantages in terms of material savings, time needed for their installation, and the overall construction costs. This paper reports the successive analyses showing a truly relevant saving in CO2 emissions (more than 77%), which would justify by itself the solution with geosynthetics, if compared with the use of natural alternative material as gravel, in the light of the main principles of circular economy. The specificity and precision of the data available allowed the calculation of a dramatic saving (more than 97%) also in terms of microplastic emissions, due to the spare of trucks for the transport of materials, therefore preventing the microplastic formation connected to the truck’s tyres wearing.