Recycled Asphalt Driveway - Should I Use it?

​What is the deal with recycled asphalt?

Recycling asphalt has become a big deal.

These days, nearly 100% of the asphalt that is removed from former roadways is recycled and used in new roads, parking lots, and driveways, completely avoiding the landfill.

In 2015, RAP usage in new asphalt pavement mixtures reached 74.2 million tons, a 32.5 percent increase from 2009. An additional 5.5 million tons of RAP were used as aggregate. At year-end 2015, some 85 million tons of RAP was estimated to be stockpiled for future use across the country.
(http://www.asphaltpavement.org/recycling)

Pretty amazing. But, there's a reason for it. The strength and durability of the product is not compromised. There are actually many reasons that a road is recycled.

• Widening an asphalt roadway
• Replacing old & cracked asphalt
• Pulling up temporary asphalt used on larger projects
• Replacing interstate cement (with asphalt layer underneath)

Regardless how it was used, the material still retains the properties that made it so resilient against the elements in the first place. Through a bit of crushing and processing, the material can be used in new hot mix or aggregate asphalt applications.

How is asphalt recycled?

In the past, any excavated asphalt would end up in a landfill with the dirt and other debris collected during demolition. Nowadays, a machine can scrape just the usable asphalt and leave behind the dirt and other construction materials, ending up with a clean, usable product. This product is delivered in trucks to an asphalt plant for processing.

Pulling it  up though does collect quite big chunks. These chunks would not be usable for any practical use so the asphalt plant processes it by crushing it down to smaller pieces, and using a screen to allow just the right size particulates through. From there, they can process it into the final materials that will be used or sold.

How we use it in our projects?

Hot Mix Asphalt

Every hot mix asphalt job we do has some percentage of recycled asphalt in it. This means we are recycling with every hot mix asphalt driveway, road, or parking lot we do!

Crushed Asphalt

When the recycled asphalt is crushed, we can use it in a cold application. As it turns out, this is a great solution for anyone wanting to make an affordable driveway or parking lot without the expense of cement or hot asphalt. It ends up semi-solid, with a base that hardens up over time, but still has a fine layer of loose material at the top.

The benefits are:

• Looks great
• No dust
• Perfect for long rural driveways
• Holds up better than gravel
• Does not get muddy like crushed concrete / gravel
• Cost Effective! The use of crushed recycled asphalt is equal to (or less than) other types of gravel!

We're glad to be part of such a massive recycling project in whatever small way we participate in it. Globally, recycling asphalt is a huge win for everyone, especially mother nature. Not only do we avoid excavating raw materials, but landfills are spared the burden of handling the waste, which as it turns out, isn't actually waste at all.

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Further interest?

We found a pdf file you may be interested in taking a look at if you're looking for more information about the process of recycling asphalt.

recycling_hot_mix_asphalt_pavement.pdf
File Size:	1393 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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