Will High Paving Costs Put Recycled Roads Back in the Fast Lane?
Highway contractors reuse millions of tons of asphalt pavement every year. Now, with the price of liquid asphalt up more than 40% on average over the past 12 months, they are looking to recycle more. Standing in their way are transportation engineers who believe that reclaimed asphalt pavement does not perform as well as virgin material.
“If you don’t solve this issue, we will charge you more,” says Dan Gallagher, vice president of operations at Thornton, Ill.-based Gallagher Asphalt Corp. Contractors in the Chicago area have more than 200,000 tons of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) waiting to be used, he says, while the price of one ton of liquid asphalt in the region shot up from $170 to as high as $405 this year.