Have you heard about "glassphalt"? Glassphalt is chopped up recycled glass that is added to asphalt and used for road resurfacing. I came across it by accident when, not long ago, I drove my son through a newly constructed residential subdivision. It was raining that day, and it appeared to me that the road was sparkling. I was not sure whether the road was in fact sparkling or if what I perceived as sparkling really had something to do with the heavy down poor.

Several days later, I revisited the neighborhood on a completely dry day. I noticed that the road still appeared to be glistening. After some inquiry, I learned that my community allowed a contractor to use an asphalt mixture for the road construction called glassphalt.

In making glassphalt, the glass is used to replace some of the sand that would otherwise be found in asphalt. After being very finely ground, glass from neighborhood recycling facilities is mixed into an asphalt mixture and becomes new road surfacing. This is very good news because instead of ending up in a landfill, disposed of glass is used to build roads.

Recycling is vital for our environment and for our pocketbooks. Landfill space is becoming increasingly sparse, and thus more costly. By removing certain materials from our waste stream that would otherwise have been taken to landfills, we accomplish a lot of good things.

Asphalt recycling represents another solution to our growing landfill problem. Asphalt pavement, which includes roads, parking lots, and virtually anything else that is paved, is 100% recyclable. In fact, even before the current recycling trend, it was commonplace in the asphalt industry to recycle old pavement into brand-new roads.

According to the National Asphalt Pavement Association, recycled asphalt is of the same quality as brand-new asphalt, "if not better." It is surprisingly easy to recycle old pavement. After breaking up old asphalt into very small pieces, the pieces are taken to an asphalt manufacturing facility where they are crushed, processed and blended into new asphalt.

Finally, the new pavement is applied to produce a new road surface. There are various methods for producing recycled asphalt. Initially, there is a hot process which requires heating a mixture of recycled and virgin asphalt. There is also a cold process; and as discussed above, there is glassphalt. Finally, rubberized asphalt combines shredded tires with traditional asphalt. Sometimes, recycled tires can constitute as much as 25% of the asphalt mix.

California is always ahead on these kinds of issues and has taken a very pro-active approach regarding recycled asphalt. For example, the City of Los Angeles Road Department has tested rubberized asphalt and asphalt vendors are now being required to deliver asphalt containing as much as 15 % recycled asphalt.

California has recycled old pavement relying on a patented microwave process. The old asphalt is nuked, just like old coffee, and then mixed with some new asphalt and re-applied. Tremendous amounts of California repaving projects have already incorporated this new method.

When you consider how many miles of roads exist in this country, converting old pavement into new pavement is a great idea that should be encouraged and repeated as much as possible. To the extent that old tires and recycled glass can be incorporated into the asphalt recycling process, so much the better.

As you can see, the use of innovative recycling technology can limit landfill reliance and protect our environment. While recycling is very important, its success requires that markets exist for the recycled materials.

In the asphalt business, private and public sectors have jointly cooperated to identify and develop this application. Just as this joint effort has enhanced our asphalt- recycling efforts, similar cooperation will be required to identify and enlarge markets for other recyclables as well.

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Published: February 17, 2000

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