BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – BETTER roads for the people may soon be a reality as the government has endorsed the demonstration of a new road product, ROMIX, which may be a more cost-effective and efficient route to road repair.
A road surface laying demonstration was undertaken by the South-African company ROMIX Group of Companies on Wednesday (May 19) and attracted a number of company representatives, officials from the Ministry of Public Works and local truckers. The new product was applied on a 100 metre stretch at the junction of the Buckley’s and Olivees roundabout and is the first step in the ROMIX demonstration.
Technical Director Peter Prinsloo explained how the product works and spoke in detail of the benefits that can be derived by constructing roads with the new product.
“ROMIX is a polymer-based, soil stabilizer that we use to harden the soil in the base layer and then affix asphalt on top of that so that we can build a road ten times faster than the traditional method. It is a lot cheaper... about 40% less than traditional methods and is an environmentally and eco-friendly a process,” Prinsloo told a gathering of media practitioners at the demonstration on May 19.
In the upcoming months, the Roads Department of the Ministry of Public Works and Utilities will undertake testing to ascertain whether the new product would be a more feasible route for the government to adopt in future road construction.
The site was cleared and prepared by loosening the material and spraying the new road product over the demarcated area. It was then mixed into the soil and compacted before shaping the road in preparation to be covered with asphalt. Prinsloo told SKNVibes that this preparation is necessary to form a thick base layer for the road to be constructed upon.
“It binds the soil particles together. You can compare it almost to a type of glue that will bind the particles together so that it doesn’t erode and it doesn’t make mud and dust. Then we put the asphalt on as a seal on top to protect that layer.
“The product will also migrate downward into the sub-grade layers to also give you a thicker layer of strength. It’s going to be compared to a three-layer traditional road whilst we are only building one layer,” he informed.
According to the ROMIX rep, the biggest advantages of the new product are the ease of application and the fact that most of the material can be found on site. He said this avoids hauling graded material from quarries and saves time.
Clerk of Works at the Ministry of Public Works Melvin Mitcham said he was pleased with the demonstration, adding that testing in the upcoming months will reveal the quality of the new road product. At the moment, he informed, the road is not frequently used but when the Buckley’s/Olivees roundabout comes to completion the Ministry of Public Works would be able to observe how it stands.
“When the roundabout is finished in a matter of weeks we would have a better idea of how the road performs. The Roads Department would then make the analysis and recommend whether it is a suitable product or not,” Mitcham told SKNVibes.
ROMIX comes with much experience in road building in many countries around the world, including Guyana and Trinidad in the region.
Prinsloo said he is confident that the government will adopt the new product to be used on a wider scale, as the company has already seen “phenomenal” results from previous demonstrations.
