Recycling solution to highways funding crisis
"WRAP, the Waste and Resources Action Programme, is advising cash-strapped highway authorities that they could save hundreds of thousands of pounds on their maintenance budgets each year by increasing their use of recycled materials."
The advice has been issued following recent press reports that highway authorities are bidding for extra funds for road maintenance amid growing concern that they will not achieve the targets laid out in the Government’s transport plan. Highways budgets are coming under particular strain as a result of construction inflation running at around 7%.
"An analysis by WRAP of the growth potential for recycled and secondary aggregates use in asphalt over the next 10 years indicates that around 40% of primary aggregates could be replaced by secondary alternatives, generating considerable cost savings."
"It is estimated that around 6 million tonnes of asphalt planings and asphalt process waste could be recycled for reuse in roads each year, and there is also the opportunity to harness a wide range of industrial wastes such as blast-furnace slags, crushed glass and incinerator bottom ash."
"According to WRAP, there are already many examples of good practice being carried out by highways authorities around the country. For example, in partnership with Lafarge, Norfolk County Council has used recycled asphalt in 16 different locations around the county to undertake both haunch and full-width structural road maintenance, saving over £26,000."
"Similar cost benefits have been achieved in Kent where the use of recycled asphalt in replacement roadbase for the A21 bypass resulted in savings of over £500,000 –– more than 10% of the tendered price of the entire build contract."
"John Barritt, WRAP’s aggregates technical adviser, commented: ‘The Highways Agency has been very proactive in encouraging the use of more sustainable aggregates and there is no doubt that the potential growth of these materials could be enormous. Specification is not a deterrent to growth."
‘Through a carefully planned procurement policy highways authorities should be able to use their buying power within the supply chain to obtain the materials they need at a competitive price.’
Highways authorities that wish to find out more about the use of recycled aggregates in road construction and where they can be purchased can telephone or visit WRAP’s AggRegain website.
