Abstract
The transition of the road engineering industry to a circular way of doing business requires more efficient and sustainable resources, energy, and waste management. The rates in which reclaimed asphalt is being recycled or reused in the asphalt mixture production process constitutes a crucial parameter in this transition. This paper aims at establishing a further step towards the combined circularity and sustainability of asphalt pavements, by introducing a framework for quantifying their Material Circularity Index. The framework is based on the methodology proposed by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and accordingly tailored for the context of asphalt pavements. This study, thus, attempts to provide a thorough analysis of the Reclaimed Asphalt’s recycling rates and trends on a European scale and to identify whether the efficiency of the current recycling practices is adequate or not. Moreover, a case study has been undertaken in order to quantify the Material Circularity index of the asphalt pavements forming Italy’s motorway network, following the proposed framework. For representative and accuracy reasons, the Material Circularity index of wearing, binder, and base courses has been calculated separately, and the results interestingly indicate that the base course exhibits the highest rates of circularity.
Highlights
Towards the attempt of the road engineering industry to promote the circular economy (CE) and its principles, while reducing the use of large amounts of energy and materials [1], Reclaimed Asphalt (RA) exhibits a high potential for exploitation
This paper aims at establishing a further step towards the combined circularity and sustainability of asphalt pavements, by introducing a framework for quantifying their Material Circularity Index
For representative and accuracy reasons, the Material Circularity index of wearing, binder, and base courses has been calculated separately, and the results interestingly indicate that the base course exhibits the highest rates of circularity
Summary
Towards the attempt of the road engineering industry to promote the circular economy (CE) and its principles, while reducing the use of large amounts of energy and materials [1], Reclaimed Asphalt (RA) exhibits a high potential for exploitation. RA is perceived as an ideal material that can re-enter the cycle of asphalt mixture production [4]. The concept of CE is not new, it still has not been widely and formally implemented in transportation infrastructure projects and in asphalt pavements. Boulding [5,6,7,8] It encompasses the principles of multiple schools of thought, such as industrial ecology and symbiosis, performance economy, biomimicry, cradle to cradle, blue economy, regenerative design, cleaner production, and natural capitalism [2,9]. There is not a consensual and definitive definition of CE, one of the most widely accepted definitions is that of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF): “economy that is restorative
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