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Toll road built on pulped fiction
By Nick Britten
(UK Daily Telegraph, Filed: 18/12/2003)
The new M6 toll road has been built on two and a half million copies of old Mills and Boon novels to prevent it from cracking. Unsold copies of the books were shredded into a paste and added to a mixture of asphalt and Tarmac. It
helps to bind the asphalt and the Tarmac, preventing the surface from splitting apart after heavy use. The construction company responsible for laying the road, Tarmac Central, used 92,000 books per mile for a 16-mile stretch of the road and said it should ensure the motorway remained free of roadworks. Richard Beal, project manager, said that Mills and Boon novels were used because millions are returned to the factory each year unsold. The reject copies are then passed on to other companies where they are recycled and used for other purposes. He said: "There is the old saying that the road to true love doesn't run smoothly but thanks to thousands of Mills and Boon romance novels we hope that the M6 toll will."
