The asphalt recycling and reclaiming industry is heading into the peak period of 2005’s construction season experiencing record demand for its products. The combination of rising world oil prices with the ever-improving quality of recycled pavements being produced has resulted in owners across North America increasingly looking to asphalt recycling as a cost-effective and reliable means to manage the deteriorating condition of their pavements.
The industry began in earnest after the oil crisis of the 1970s and its foundation has always been the cost advantage it has maintained over virgin materials. With oil prices over $55 a barrel this year leading to asphalt cement prices hovering around $200/ton and diesel regularly selling for $2/gal or more, the cost benefits gained by recycling deteriorated pavements has grown substantially. These increased savings are holding true for all four of the traditionally recognized forms of asphalt recycling: cold planing to produce RAP material for recycling in hot-mix plants or in a variety of cold processes; hot-in-place recycling of the pavement surface layers; cold-in-place recycling of most or all of the in-place asphalt pavement; and full-depth reclamation of the complete asphalt pavement and underlying materials.
The impact of these high oil prices on the cost of producing asphalt pavements from exclusively virgin materials is showing up not only in the increased cost of asphalt cement, but also in the cost of fuel to produce and transport these materials.
With most quality recycled pavements being produced requiring only 0.5% to 2.5% new asphalt cement, the savings generated here have long been documented. While the current higher asphalt cement prices are increasing these savings, it is the cost of fuel to run crushers, asphalt plants and haulage trucks that is becoming noteworthy and starting to have an additional and significant impact. Construction of a typical cold-in-place recycled pavement can consume as little as 1 gal of diesel/ton, compared with average consumptions in excess of 4 gal/ton to produce similarly performing hot-mix materials.
This unexpected, sudden widening in the traditional cost differential between recycled and virgin pavements comes at a time when the recycling industry is already seeing strong demand for its products because of the substantial improvement in the quality of pavements being produced.
This improved quality has stemmed from advancements made not only in the workmanship and construction of these pavements, but also in the knowledge and expertise gained in process selection, pavement engineering and materials design.
Every year a greater percentage of road budgets is being allocated to pavement rehabilitation in an effort to deal with the continuing deterioration of our roads. Owners and engineers are challenged with the task of designing effective and reliable pavements from these old ones while being pressured to complete more miles with clearly insufficient funding. Many are rising to this challenge by becoming much more proficient in their selection of rehabilitation treatments.
The ability to become an expert in selecting the right treatment for the right road at the right time has become an extremely valuable “tool in their tool box” to balance the management of their pavement assets with their budgets. This has resulted in an increase in the number of seminars, workshops and courses being held across the country on asphalt recycling. The focus of many of these sessions has shifted from describing what asphalt recycling is to determining how best to select and apply these processes to a variety of pavement conditions. There is no greater indicator of this than the surge in demand for NHI’s Asphalt Pavement Recycling Technologies course.
And not only is the ability to select the most appropriate recycling process becoming easier. The advancements made in material testing, selection and mixture design coupled with improvements in equipment and quality control in the field have resulted in recycled pavements that are better designed and whose future performance under traffic can be better predicted.
With no end in sight to the need to preserve and rehabilitate the nation’s pavements, the asphalt recycling industry’s future looks brighter than ever.