Recycled road a first
What is thought to be the country’s first completely “green” road is being laid on a busy thoroughfare in Shirley.
Golf Links Road near the Palms shopping centre is being rebuilt using 100 per cent recycled roading materials. Recycled asphalt is being laid on top of two layers of crushed concrete base course.
Fulton Hogan is carrying out the work for the City Council. The work, which is taking place from New Brighton Road to a point behind the mall, is due to finish at the end of this month.
Fulton Hogan’s Environmental Manager Greg Slaughter says the project is part of a programme of research and development by the company which aims to minimise environmental impacts and encourage sustainable outcomes in the roading industry.
“Using recycled materials saves on non-renewable natural resources including quarry aggregate and petroleum-based bitumen and minimises the environmental side-effects the production of these materials have.” Although some roading projects have used up to 20% recycled materials, over all the industry reuses less than 1%, which is poor, Mr Slaughter says.
Golf Links Road is an excellent test-bed for the use of recycled materials because it is a busy road with trucks delivering goods to the Palms mall. “This road has been designed to stand up to the wear and tear of heavy traffic and it will highlight to others in the industry the excellent technical properties of these materials.”
Peter McDonald, the Council’s Pavement Maintenance Team Leader, says the Council is also keen to learn more about the feasibility of reusing material like old asphalt and demolition concrete. This material would otherwise have to be dumped.
“The Council’s aim, which comes from its waste minimisation and sustainability policies, is to decrease the amount of material going to landfill and projects such as this one could potentially have a marked effect,” he says. “We’ve already done trials using crushed glass in asphalt and will continue to investigate options to minimise waste through recycling.
“Canterbury has a cheap source of natural aggregate but it won’t be this way forever and the longer we can make it last the better. In recent years the industry’s been starting to find uses for crushed concrete, but old asphalt taken up from roads is still only reused in small quantities.” |
