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  • The Guardian

    The man who paves India's roads with old plastic

    Indian chemistry professor shows that repurposed plastic can be good for the environment
    by Kamala Thiagarajan in Madurai Jul 09, 2018 4 minutes
    Dr Rajagopalan Vasudevan , dean and professor of chemistry at the the Thiagarajar College of Engineering in the South Indian city of Madurai. Photograph: Kamala Thiagarajan/KT

    At 73, Dr Rajagopalan Vasudevan is roughly as old as the mass production of plastic. But that is not the reason why the chemistry professor has a soft spot for the much-maligned material.

    “Plastic isn’t the problem,” the venerable scientist says in his office in the southern Indian city of Madurai. “We are. Plastic wouldn’t clog our oceans or our landfills if we didn’t throw it there in the first place. And there is so much we can do with it instead.”

    He should know. In January this year, Dr Vasudevan was honoured with one of India’s highest civilian awards, the Padma Shri, for his groundbreaking research on re-using waste plastic – in

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