Along a test road near Dallas and in the parking lots of a Texas university, researchers are quietly asking whether the plastic waste choking landfills might also hold the key to roads that endure the punishing heat of a warming world. By melting shredded plastic into asphalt, a University of Texas team is exploring a substitution that could make infrastructure more resilient precisely as the climate demands it most. The idea is not entirely new — India has paved tens of thousands of miles this way over two decades — but the urgency is fresh, and the stakes are rising with every summer's recor