The Most Commonly Recycled Material? Asphalt

America's Most Recycled ProductThe latest NAPA/FHWA survey of asphalt producers’ use of recycled materials and warm-mix asphalt finds that more than 79 million tons of recycled materials — mostly reclaimed asphalt pavement and recycled asphalt roofing shingles — were put to use in new asphalt pavements during 2016. The same survey found that more than 31 percent of all asphalt pavement mixture produced during the 2016 construction season was produced using energy-saving warm-mix asphalt technologies.

 

The survey, conducted by NAPA in partnership with FHWA for each construction season since 2009, found that nearly 117 million tons of WMA was produced in 2016. In 14 states, more than half of all asphalt pavement mixture was produced as WMA; in three of those states, more than 75 percent of asphalt pavement mixture was produced using WMA technologies.

 

The survey also found that more than 76.9 million tons of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) and nearly 1.9 million tons of recycled asphalt roofing shingles (RAS) were used in new asphalt pavement mixes in the United States during in 2016. Reclaiming and reusing the asphalt cement in RAP and RAS saved more than $2.1 billion in 2016 compared to the use of virgin materials and saved nearly 50 million cubic yards of landfill space from reclaiming RAP alone.

 

A full copy of the survey, including appendixes with state-by-state data, can be downloaded from www.AsphaltPavement.org/recycling.

 

Article provided by www.asphaltpavement.org.