'Rubber roads' pave way to cutting costs and carbon emissions

ERJ staff report (TP)

Sheffield, UK – A British company, Billian UK, has developed an innovative technology to use recycled tire rubber pellets in road construction.

The technology harnesses the resilient properties of rubber in small ‘GTR Paving Pellets’ (ground tire rubber), about 10mm in size. The pellets are designed to act as a delivery mechanism for the rubber concentrate, which begins life as recycled ground tire rubber before being blended with bitumen and then converted into pellets.

The know-how was first developed in the US, but the company says: “There’s nothing new about using recycled tire rubber in road surfacing – people have been doing it for over 50 years, but the key to unlocking the full potential of so called rubber asphalt is the technology − how to get the recycled tire rubber into the asphalt.

“For the asphalt industry, which currently depends on materials with very high embedded energy costs – polymer-modified bitumen is expensive in carbon terms both to make and to transport and store – asphalt made using bitumen modified with rubber concentrate from ground recycled tires could therefore offer a solution to greenhouse gas emissions associated with traditional asphalt manufacturing.

“And because new roads made with bitumen modified with rubber will last longer as a result, both government and industry could save millions of pounds as well as thousands of tons of CO2.”

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Press release from Billian UK