Tarmac tyre trial on UK motorway

Highways England is carrying out trials of rubberised asphalt on a busy stretch of UK motorway. A section of the M1 near the city of Leicester has been repaved by contractor Tarmac, using a special asphalt mix containing crumb rubber from recycled motor vehicle tyres. Tarmac has developed the mix specially to meet tough requirements from Highways England. This trial will determine how the stretch of highway, located between junction 22 and junction 23, behaves in terms of running wear, skid resistance and
August 7, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

8100 Highways England is carrying out trials of rubberised asphalt on a busy stretch of UK motorway. A section of the M1 near the city of Leicester has been repaved by contractor 2399 Tarmac, using a special asphalt mix containing crumb rubber from recycled motor vehicle tyres. Tarmac has developed the mix specially to meet tough requirements from Highways England.

This trial will determine how the stretch of highway, located between junction 22 and junction 23, behaves in terms of running wear, skid resistance and resistance to changes in temperature. The trial has been funded by Highways England to see whether crumb rubber from tyres can help provide a sustainable solution for road construction. Waste tyres from vehicles currently take up enormous space in landfill and provide a major concern with regard to fire safety and pollution. Being able to reuse the rubber from vehicle tyres in asphalt mixes would deliver an important solution for sustainable road construction and transport, as well as reducing waste disposal needs and the risk of fire or pollution.

Crumb rubber has been used extensively in asphalt mixes around the world, most notably in the Western US states of Arizona and New Mexico.

Around 40 million waste tyres from vehicles are produced/year in the UK and over 500,000 disused tyres are shipped out of the UK each year to be landfill. However, EU rules ban the disposal of tyres in landfill sites so these scrap tyres instead are transported to the Middle East and Asia. There are over seven million tyres filling a site in Kuwait.

Tarmac estimates that, depending on the thickness of the surface layers, up to 750 waste tyres/km of road could be used with the material.

Asphalt milling, paving & compaction

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Recycled porous asphalt trial in Netherlands
    May 15, 2017
    An innovative reuse of porous asphalt is being tested on secondary roads in the Netherlands. The promising LE2AP European Life demonstration project involves test sections of durable, silent asphalt on roads in the Netherlands. LE2AP stands for Low Emission 2 Asphalt Pavement, with the 2 indicating reduced emissions for both CO2 and sound. BAM recently installed two test sections of a novel surface material in collaboration with the Dutch provinces of Noord-Brabant and Gelderland. This asphalt road surface
    Read More
  • Efficient processing of RAP in the mix
    December 19, 2017
    There are important methods aimed at the reuse and recycling of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) a number of problems have to be solved however, mainly concerning the elimination of moisture content and how best to heat the RAP without damaging the binder. When RAP is used in percentages of up to 30-40% of the final mix, heating can be carried out through direct contact with hot aggregates. On the other hand, in order to use higher RAP percentages, up to 100%, the plant has to be fitted with a specific h
    Read More
  • Cost-effective innovative backfill recycling
    February 29, 2012
    Day Aggregates offers a novel materials recycling approach - Kristina Smith reports Here's a neat idea: take the muck from utilities trenches, treat it and reuse it, saving between 30-40% on the cost of landfill and backfill. This, in essence, is the theory behind Day Aggregates' EcoFILL 40 material. Confident of a growing market for this type of product, Day has invested over €569,000 (£500,000) in a new plant at its 3.4ha site in south London. "There is great demand for a solution to waste streams which
    Read More
  • Cost-effective innovative backfill recycling
    April 12, 2012
    Day Aggregates offers a novel materials recycling approach - Kristina Smith reports Here's a neat idea: take the muck from utilities trenches, treat it and reuse it, saving between 30-40% on the cost of landfill and backfill. This, in essence, is the theory behind Day Aggregates' EcoFILL 40 material. Confident of a growing market for this type of product, Day has invested over €569,000 (£500,000) in a new plant at its 3.4ha site in south London. "There is great demand for a solution to waste streams
    Read More

Highlighted Content