KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- They're not pretty and sometimes they smell. Face it: Landfills are just one of the ugly facts of life, and the United States has thousands of them, filled with waste. Worse, some of that garbage doesn’t degrade, such as plastic items and rubber tires. See ‘Hot spots’ that Kansas City car thieves frequently target But this is a story of hope and ingenuity and "people power." It starts with a Kansas City woman with an idea, a possible solution that would not only help our environment, but improve our local roadways. “Half my job was picking up litter,” said Olivia English, owner of a Live Green USA, once a mere landscaping business. “I mean, every job I went to, before we could start, it was picking up all of this trash”, she described. "And the question was, ‘Where is it really going?’" As English soon discovered, the answer was “to a landfill,” something that didn’t make her happy, especially if the garbage was non-biodegradable, like plastic. The other problem? “The faster that the landfill fills up, the quicker we’re going to have to build another landfill,” said Rody Taylor, our second person on English's journey of invention. Taylor owns a local "material recovery facility" that specializes in hard to process consumer trash. “Any time that we can extend the life of a landfill by diverting materials away, that’s a very good thing,” he said. License revoked months after sudden closure of Independence dental office So, where to put those materials? After hours of research, Olivia had an unusual answer – Use them in the roads. "Plastic is actually very complementary to road paving” she told FOX4. “You can take a lot of waste out with just a small percentage of what you put into a road." But would it work? That's when she found out about "person number three." "I was like, 'I gotta meet this guy,'" English said. She’s talking about Bill Buttlar, a scientist at the University of Missouri and an expert in roadways and recycled material. Buttlar remembers her phone call. “Well, I was pretty excited that there was some activism or sustainability efforts going on in Kansas City,” Buttlar said. “Why not use tires from Kansas City or plastics from Kansas City on Kansas City roads?” See the latest headlines in Kansas City and across Kansas, Missouri But now came the hard part for English. “This industry is, ‘If it isn't broke, don't fix it’,” she observed. “So, any new idea is going to be risky.” That said, English managed to get approval for the project from Kansas City Public Works Manager Brian Platt. Now, she just needed one more person. “Initially, I probably thought that she was dreaming a little bit,” said Andrew Fahey of J-M Fahey Construction. “The more information she brought, the more intrigued I became with what she was trying to accomplish.” And finally, two years after the initial idea, the group was ready to put it to a solid test at three roads in the area of 113th and State Line. Fahey’s crews paved one street using ground tires, another using plastics, and a mix of the two materials at the last location. Not only was it difficult to tell the difference, but so far, the process seems a success. Scientist Buttlar says with the new paving process: “You need a lot less rock and you need a lot less asphalt, so it's so much better for the environment.” As of now, the group continues to check each road for any cracks or developing flaws as part of this "Beta test," but so far, so good. Download the FOX4 News app on iPhone and Android So, what did it mean to English to see her idea become a reality? “My life goal is to leave this place better than I found it,” she replied. “To help our community, our society, our planet, to see it come to life” And she added: “I know my dad would be proud, and I know my mom is proud." In the meantime, Buttlar and the University of Missouri-Columbia is testing a road in their area that’s paved with these types of materials. Again, their research shows the material is holding up well, even after multiple Missouri winters. As for the roadways here, “Mizzou” will continue that testing using A-I software to see how it holds up.