Tarmac win largest road recycling contract
TARMAC have been awarded the largest road recycling contract ever to be undertaken in the UK, involving the reconstruction and resurfacing of an 8km stretch of the A38 in Devon using recycled asphalt.
Worth almost £8 million, the contract involves the removal of 100,000 tonnes of worn asphalt from the carriageway of this primary tourist route past Buckfastleigh. About 70,000 tonnes of the waste road planings will then be recycled on site to produce foamed bitumen or ‘foamix’, which will be used as a base for the new road surface.
Tarmac contracting director Rod Calder said the project would create a best-practice model for future major-scale highway maintenance and resurfacing contracts using recycled asphalt. ‘By bringing recycling plant machinery on site to reprocess large quantities of road planings, we will ensure that transport costs and traffic movements are minimized while protecting the environment.’
Tarmac say demand for recycled aggregate for road resurfacing is increasing following recent changes to the Highway Agency’s Specification for Highway Works, which encourages the use of recycled construction materials where they are sourced locally.
