Fake plastic trees

There are rarely enough ways to re-purpose recycled plastic, so a lot of it ends up in landfills anyway. Recently, I discovered that there may be a huge demand for recycled plastic that could solve a specific pedestrian problem in cities.

As a resident in my community, I joined a working group of City workers, planners, designers and consultants, who wanted to walk along a major road in my community that just happens to be the inner city portion of the Trans Canada Highway. As we were walking along this roadway, the participants notice how vulnerable they felt walking so close to the roadway. Many got splashed with slush. The problem wasn't the width of the sidewalk, it was that the usable portion of it was just too close to the road. There was definitely room, in most cases, to make the sidewalk wider and shift the portion you walk on (as opposed to any decorative portion) further away from the road. But most of the participants also thought that some kind of physical barrier, even vegetation, or trees, would help make the sidewalk seem safer and more isolated from the traffic.

The problem is that vegetation doesn't typically do very well along a major roadway that receives a constant application of salt (or in our case calcium chloride) in winter. Most of the spots reserved for trees or bushes were empty, not because nothing had been planted, but because whatever was planted had not fared well. The City spends a lot of time trying to find vegetation that can survive our weather and the stuff scattered on our roads. I'm wondering if the solution could make use of our unwanted recycled plastic.

I'm picturing fake stalks lining the roads between the sidewalk and the road itself. Something similar to bamboo stalks, but made in different colours, thicknesses, even shapes. It could even be fake tall grasses. Bunched together, these stalks would act as a barrier to make pedestrians feel more isolated from traffic. Some of these stalks could even be lit up with dim lighting. Of course someone would have to design and build this fake vegetation, but what a wonderful way to make use of some plastic that currently finds no secondary use.