City, county will allow more recycled asphalt in road projects

Unless you're one of "those" people, there's nothing sexy about asphalt.

Until now.

That's because city and county road managers recently decided to increase the amount of recycled asphalt that can be used in paving projects.

Now, 20 percent of the black goo laid on streets can be composed of old asphalt taken up from tattered roads, with up to 25 percent with engineers' approval. The new standard is similar to one adopted by the Colorado Department of Transportation in 1999.

Previously, Colorado Springs and El Paso County allowed 10 percent to 15 percent of asphalt in their roadwork to be recycled, with a maximum of 20 percent under special circumstances.

The new standards mean less old asphalt will end up in landfills, and contractors' cost for asphalt will drop, resulting in lower bids for paving projects.

The city has used recycled asphalt for a couple of years, and engineers are convinced it can create a road durable enough to withstand 10 or 12 years of use, the same life span expected of new asphalt, said City Engineer Cam McNair.

McNair said the two governments developed the new paving specifications with the Colorado Asphalt Pavement Association and the four suppliers of asphalt in the region, which operate six plants.

The increased use of recycled asphalt locally mirrors a nationwide trend: The National Asphalt Pavement Association estimates 73 million tons of reclaimed asphalt pavement is reused every year. That's almost twice as much as the combined 40 million tons of recycled glass, paper, aluminum and plastics.

McNair said recycling asphalt was made possible with the development of giant milling machines in the early 1990s that can precisely scrape off asphalt without scooping up the crushed rock that makes up a road's sub-base.

In years past, smart contractors sometimes recycled old asphalt for less critical paving, such as road shoulders. But most of it was hauled to landfills.

Now, with better technology and more experience, we can truck the old asphalt to a yard, where it is crushed, screened and sorted. The material is then added to the rock, sand and liquid asphalt, a refined oil, that make up virgin asphalt. The concoction is heated until the asphalt binds with the rock and sand.

Tom Peterson, executive director of the state pavement association, said the mix is at least as strong as new asphalt.

McNair said cities in other parts of the country are trying higher percentages of recycled asphalt - some up to 50 percent - but the city and county prefer to wait to see how those roads wear.

McNair and Peterson said it's hard to quantify the potential savings. The price of asphalt - along with general construction costs - had been climbing steeply along with the price of oil until the recent downturn in the economy. Now, with demand for housing down, so too is the price of asphalt.

But both say they don't expect that to last, and recycling the stuff eventually will mean savings for taxpayers. Beyond that, they say, it's just smart to reuse a material that has a value and that otherwise would be consigned to a landfill.

The upshot? Asphalt can be green. And in the 21st century, that means it's sexy, baby.

Tell me your commuter tales: 636-0197 or bill.mckeown@gazette.com.