Where the Rubber is the Road

Rubberized asphalt paves the way for happy taxpayers and road travelers . . . even four-legged ones

By Mike Anderson

Over the past 20 years, Gary Shaw spent considerable time educating people in his rural Ontario, Canada county and beyond about rubberized asphalt pavement. And for those people not part of the local elementary school classes or international conferences he spoke to, the former County of Grey transportation and public safety director had huge signs posted along portions of rubberized county roads that would ensure they understood clearly what they were traveling on.

Not that horses need to read.

Shaw recalls a sudden drop-in to his Owen Sound office a few years ago from a member of the intensely private, highly devout, completely respectful Mennonite community that farms alongside the most quiet of secondary roads, as about as far away, literally and figuratively, from even the quaint villages and small towns that dot the Ontario county. When Mennonite community members do need to go to town, it’s most often via horse-pulled buggies. “We really like those rubber roads,” Shaw was told by his surprise visitor. “So I asked him, ‘Why do you like them?’ And he said, ‘Well, our horses can tell when they go off conventional asphalt onto rubber, because their gait will increase.’”

If that isn’t the ultimate testament to highway productivity, then what is?

The County of Grey, with a closed-loop tire recycling process, turned its own increasing stockpiles of discarded tires into a new highway pavement program; a problem for one department of local government thus became a solution for another. Other jurisdictions throughout the continent secure the crumb rubber they incorporate into their asphalt from companies specializing in the recycling of tire rubber.

“Our whole purpose is to try to educate the engineer on how to make the road act more like a tire, really,” says Doug Carlson, vice president of asphalt products with Liberty Tire Recycling, which itself reclaims more than one-third of all discarded tires in the United States. Different types of asphalt mixes are used depending on climate, and overall the range for the paving material is about 80 degrees C; comparatively, says Carlson, tires have a range of about 150 degrees C and, most of the time, users don’t change them from condition to condition. “The big challenge with asphalt is that it gets too soft when it’s hot out and too brittle when it’s cold,” he says. “Well, the tire rubber now used in asphalt counteracts that weakness. Rubber in an asphalt binder will make it last longer under a wide range of temperatures and climatic conditions.”

No More Bouncing Checks

The use of crumb rubber in an asphalt mix goes back 40 years, particularly in the U.S. Southwest, but the technology is growing in application throughout the world, says Carlson.

“The biggest factor for that is the realization that tire rubber can be used as a substitute to virgin polymers commonly used in asphalt. The switch from a virgin polymer to a tire rubber component is a driving factor for increased usage, and of course that is related to the cost of crude oil. As crude oil has increased, the cost of polymers has increased,” he says. “Cost savings is the biggest issue in today’s market, with high asphalt prices and high polymer prices. Tire rubber’s been steady in price – very stable over the past 15 years.

“If state agencies are not using it routinely, at least they are developing a specification that they can use if there might be a shortage of polymers – if polymers become scarce or just too expensive.”

States once leery of noise-reducing rubberized asphalt in open graded friction courses, due to negative experiences with failing binders in the ‘80s, are increasingly coming on board with the benefits of the elasticized asphalt in such applications, he’s observed. “Many are taking a second look, maybe even a third look, at these mixes,” says Carlson, whose company is based in Pittsburgh, “particularly in the Northeast, where you have a lot of benefits for the splash and spray reduction.” He notes: New Jersey has started used rubber in its open graded friction courses; Massachusetts is using rubber in a surface wearing course as part of its routine short-line pavement rehab program.

On the whole, says Carlson, “where they’re substituting tire rubber for polymers, the contractors are saving the state’s DOT anywhere from $2 to $5 per ton of mix. It adds up. On big projects, you can save anywhere from $50,000 to $250,000 rather quickly.”

This could result in a fund-strapped agency, local or state, being able to complete one additional project per year than otherwise possible.