The most difficult section of China's so-called first low-carbon highway was finished at the weekend and the whole project is expected to be open to traffic by the end of the year.
The 251-kilometre highway that connects Chongqing and Chengdu, Sichuan, will shorten the drive between the two cities from more than three hours to about 2-1/2. The 78-kilometre Chongqing section was completed on Saturday.
The Ministry of Transport said it was a pilot for low-carbon construction projects, one of six low-carbon energy-saving highways. Another in Yunnan will be 105.7 kilometres long and span from the county of Daguan to Ludian in Zhaotong . It is expected to be completed in 2015.
The six-lane section of highway in Chongqing was constructed by a local state-owned company and the China Railway Construction Corporation at a cost of 8.6 billion yuan (HK$10.8 billion).
Several measures, such as cutting energy use during construction, recycling waste water runoff and installing an electronic ticket-collection system to reduce tailbacks will "green" the highway, project chief Luo Yugang.
By recycling old tyres and mixing them with asphalt to pave the highway, greenhouse gas emissions during the construction process have been slashed, with asphalt fumes reduced 90 per cent.
