Repairing Roads with Green Technology: Green Technology Articles: Eco20/20

Repairing Roads with Green Technology

There has been much recent scrutiny directed at vehicles that utilize much of our fossil fuels. Researchers and scientists are constantly developing new technologies to lower CO2 emissions and recycle used materials before they end up in a landfill, as well as developing new sources of power altogether.

What about the roads that carry these vehicles each and every day?

Infrastructure itself may not be the first thing that comes to one's mind when discussing green technologies, but it may very well be a vast source of ecological improvements and potential for conservation.

What if roads could be sustainably maintained by being repaired with the use of their original materials? This could save an enormous amount of time, energy, and natural resources; This increased efficiency could in turn, reduce the stressful backlog on road crews, potentially permitting them to repair road damage as soon as it's needed. Contemporary studies suggest that traditional road repair procedures release enough carbon dioxide to require 11 trees to absorb and process it. It can be agreed that there is much room for improvement here.

What is being done?

Fortunately, much is already being done in the way of research and implementation of road recycling. To stimulate the adoption of new, more efficient, technologies and procedures, the European Union has commenced the DIRECT-MAT initiative (Dismantling and Recycling Techniques for Road Materials). The goal of the DIRECT-MAT initiative is to call upon experiences and research from all over Europe in order to build a research database and discover the best practices for road construction, repair, and recycling of road materials. If this mass collaboration is successful, we could see promising improvements in road construction and repair technologies.

Hope in Infrared

An emerging technological advance in roadwork is "infrared repair".

* Using infrared equipment placed over an area of damaged road, such as a pothole, a portion of the asphalt is first cleaned of various debris and dirt from inclement weather, vehicles, etc.

* The asphalt is then deeply heated until it is soft and malleable, whereby the workers remove the equipment in order to rake and reshaped the damaged area.

* After adding a rejuvenating agent, some new asphalt is added, leveled, and allowed to settle before being compacted with 2,500 lbs of pressure on the fresh asphalt.

* After the road is cleaned, it is once again able to accept traffic.

Is this method as efficient as it sounds? Indeed it is. The above process uses much less fresh asphalt compared to traditional methods. Some road-repair companies claim that the above procedure can be carried out in 20 minutes flat. The CO2 emissions released from this procedure are approximately 60% less than that of traditional means. This amount of CO2 can be absorbed by only 2 trees, rather than 11. Finally, this method of repair leaves no "seams" commonly crated by traditional repairs. This means no money spent on sealant and frequent subsequent repairs, not to mention conservation of resources normally required to do so.

Greener Pastures (and Roadways)

The numerous advantages offered by this emerging road reconstruction technology outweigh the little, if any, drawbacks. With more eco-centric and cost-effective advances in road repair, one can readily expect reaping benefits to affect their daily lives, from lower transportation fees to little or no backup time due to road construction or repair.