BC

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Construction workers lay a new warm mix paving application derived from recycled plastic on a street in Vancouver, B.C. Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. The new paving application is a mix of post-consumer recycled plastics like the ones that go into a blue recycling box. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

It may still look like tar-black road asphalt, but the ingredients in a mixture used by Vancouver paving crews is actually green.

The City of Vancouver is experimenting with a new asphalt recipe along a city street that includes plastics from the household recycle bin.

Peter Judd, the general manager of engineering services in Vancouver, says the idea is win, win, win for the city.

Judd says they're saving on greenhouse gases, cutting down on plastic from the blue bin and chopping vapour emitted from the paving process because the asphalt is cooler.

He says the new method brings the city one step closer to becoming the greenest in the world.