Use of Recycled Materials for Road Works

By on October 29, 2011

BRUCE MCCLURE, CMPA General Manager reports on the use of recycled materials for road works.

OVER the last few years a number of CMPA members have become increasingly involved in the production of recycled materials for use in road building.

While Victoria has considerable sources of quality rock, accessibility too many of these sources is becoming more difficult due to factors such as planning issues, environment concerns (vegetation, native fauna) and the increasing urban spread of the Melbourne metropolitan area.

The establishment of new metropolitan based hard rock quarries or extensions to existing quarries are either very costly, take a very long time to obtain or as we are seeing occurring more frequently, simply not politically acceptable.

Stockpile of concrete building products

With the above pressures on supply in Melbourne the use of recycled materials is being more and more acceptable. VicRoads specifications now allow the use of a range of recycled products supplied by sources accredited by VicRoads in accordance with VicRoads Code of Practice for Source Rock Investigations to be utilised in road pavements.

Stockpile of old concrete kerbing

Recycled products allowed include water,surface spills; crushed concrete, reclaimed asphalt pavement crumbed rubber and crushed brick, tiles, glass and white wares.

It needs to be noted that only materials from a VicRoads accredited source can be used for VicRoads works.

VicRoads has put out a Technical Note number 107 which deals with the use of recycled materials for road construction.

The Technical Note discusses in some detail two of the most commonly used recycled materials namely, crushed concrete and Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP). It also discusses pavement applications and registration of mix designs.

Also in this note is a table named Guidance Matrix for Road Construction Materials. The table sets out various criteria that apply for the use of recycled materials as an alternative material for an actual crushed rock product and also specifies permissible percentages of recycled materials that can be used as supplementary materials.

Stockpile of Recycled Asphalt Pavement

For example for Unbound Granular pavements and for a 20 mm Class 2 crushed rock supply, a 20 mm Class 2 crushed concrete product can be utilised provided that the material is being used on a road with a design traffic load of less than 3 X 106 equivalent standard axles.

This Technical Note is a welcome addition to the supply of materials for road construction. It gives CMPA members who either use their own plant on site to produce recycled products or bring in mobile plant to crush products stored on their own sites, some certainty on what is required. It also sets standards that can be adopted by municipalities and other government departments on their projects.

For more information on the above, please contact the following VicRoads Officers Graeme Newman 03 9881 8934 or Andrew Walker 03 9881 8941.

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