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The scourge of plastic pollution - four billion bags are used each year in Australia with most ending up in landfill - has become even more pressing following China’s crackdown on imported waste and Coles’ double backflip on charging for plastic bags.

China has signalled it will no longer be the world’s rubbish dump, banning 24 types of waste - including some plastics and paper - and setting a tougher standard for contamination levels as of January 1, 2018.

Although China’s ban mostly affects curbside recyclables - which do not include plastic bags - the Australian Council of Recycling is ebullient about the trial of the new asphalt.

“Awesome, awesome, awesome,” said CEO Pete Shmigel.

“Plastiphalt is a positive example of what can be done in response to the China threat because it gives us a stronger domestic market demand for the plastics that consumers and industry collect and sort here.”

Mr Shmigel said that although some playgrounds, carpark curbs, speed humps and park tables and benches were already made with recycled materials it was not at a scale large enough to soak up enough rubbish.

Plastiphalt is a collaboration between Australian company Downer, Close the Loop and Red Group.

Close the Loop sales and marketing manager Peter Tamblyn said the Victorian recycling company had been working on the plastic pellets it adds to the road mix 18 months before China announced its ban, although he admits: “If you were to write the script, the timing couldn’t have been better.”

He said Australian governments needed to show leadership by using recycled materials in roads.

“It’s just a great idea that solves a major major waste problem we had anyway even before China - we send 300,000 tonnes of soft plastic to landfill and we have been doing that for years.”

In 2002 chemistry professor Dr Rajagopalan Vasudevan paved a 20-metre road in India with plastic-modified bitumen.

Since then, almost 10,000 kilometres of Indian roads have been reportedly paved using this technique.

But Jim Appleby, the general manager of Reconomy at Downer, stressed Plastiphalt was made using a very different process to India.

“What we are doing is a complex technical operation compared to some of the highlighted items we have seen on the internet in India,” he said.

Mr Appleby said Plastiphalt was cost competitive and had a 65 per cent improvement in fatigue life, which meant the road lasted longer and allowed it to better handle heavy traffic.

He said he was often asked if Plastiphalt created microbeads which pollute waterways and poison marine life.

“We completely melt the plastic into the bitumen - if you imagine putting sugar into coffee it dissolves. This is exactly what happens, there are no microbeads.”

Sutherland Shire Mayor Carmelo Pesce said the council was committed to showing leadership in sustainability and the use of recycled products.

But in a council report last month Sutherland Shire said there were risks associated with the trial that could not be fully dismissed due to the asphalt being a newly developed product with only limited field testing. “Only time will tell if the product is successful,” the report said.