Pothole fix: MMRDA gets innovative with old tyres

Now, you can donate your old or used vehicle tyres to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), who has been using these to fill up potholes at selected stretches on Western Urban Road. In an eco-friendly move, old tyres donated by individuals were used to fill up potholes.

Potholes were filled up using old tyres which are first crushed and segregated. The fine quality rubber crumb is collected and mixed with bitumen which is then used for surfacing of the potholed stretch. If found satisfactory, the MMRDA plans to ask its contractors to use the same mixture in the future.

Potholes were filled on three flyovers including Dahisar, Borivli, and Kherwadi flyover at Bandra which were done by a private firm as a part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) for free.

A senior MMRDA, official, said, "We had got a request from a firm named CEAT tyres and had taken our consent to use the same mixture to fill up potholes on Western Urban Road. This mixture of using old tyres is not a new technique but has been tried and tested," adding that,

"We are not using this mixture for now but if found satisfactory we can always ask our contractors to use old tyres as an ingredient to fill up potholes in the future."

A spokesperson for CEAT tyres, that used the technique, said, "We used it with recycling perspective as well. There are other similarly effective mixes with which potholes can be filled and MMRDA also has their own specification in place. The idea was to contribute from our side to reduce the growing number of potholes and help the citizens along with the MMRDA."