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

  • Tarmac’s productivity boost with new software
    December 13, 2018
    The highly sophisticated BPO ASPHALT software system is at the heart of a major boost to productivity and efficiency from contractor Tarmac. The company is the first contractor in the UK to employ the package, developed by Volz Consulting in Germany. Tarmac says that the software allows its contracting team to plan highways schemes and inner-city projects in detail, ahead of work starting on site. Using GPS data, the software utilises surface area values to produce fully optimised planning documents and w
    Read More
  • Epoxy resins for resilient roads in Ethiopia
    April 4, 2022
    Using epoxy bitumen in chip seals could significantly increase the life of high-volume roads in low-income countries and make them more resilient to climate change impacts. The technology, which has been developed and used in New Zealand, will be trialled in Ethiopia this year.
    Read More
  • Innovative reinforcement for weak roads
    May 9, 2012
    An innovative solution was put forward to support slip roads on a Dutch motorway. Patrick Smith reports. The 2010 opening of the A7 motorway extension on the southern ring road of the city of Sneek, The Netherlands, brings an end to local traffic misery. By using innovative Tensar Geocell Foundation Mattress technology over weak estuarine clay, MNO-Vervat Noord, the main contractor, constructed a key junction and its slip roads in weeks instead of months, with considerable cost savings.
    Read More
  • Innovative reinforcement for weak roads
    April 10, 2012
    An innovative solution was put forward to support slip roads on a Dutch motorway. Patrick Smith reports The 2010 opening of the A7 motorway extension on the southern ring road of the city of Sneek, The Netherlands, brings an end to local traffic misery. By using innovative Tensar Geocell Foundation Mattress technology over weak estuarine clay, MNO-Vervat Noord, the main contractor, constructed a key junction and its slip roads in weeks instead of months, with considerable cost savings. The conversion
    Read More

Highlighted Content