Rebuilding roads in place, protecting the communities around them

Cold recycling reconstructs pavement where it sits. It reduces hauling through neighborhoods, keeps asphalt plant production to a minimum, and lowers the cost of keeping a road network in good condition.

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A road network is stored investment and stored carbon

Every lane-mile holds decades of aggregate, binder, and hauling emissions. Keeping that value in service depends on steady monitoring, maintenance, and repair. When a road is allowed to fail, the agency pays the highest cost in the pavement lifecycle and imports all of that material and carbon a second time. Cold recycling reuses the pavement that is already in the ground, so the network stays in service at a fraction of the cost and impact of full reconstruction.

Preserving the network stretches the budget

Reconstruction is the most expensive point on the pavement lifecycle. State assessments place the cost of reconstruction at roughly fourteen times the cost of timely preservation, and identify savings of 25 percent or more when roads are rebuilt through cold recycling. A lower cost per mile means an agency can treat more of its network each year, which keeps more roads out of the range where full reconstruction becomes the only option.

Four benefits that reach the streets around the work

Less hauling on local streets

Cold recycling reconstructs the road in place, removing roughly 400 loaded truck trips per lane-mile from surrounding streets.

Lower asphalt plant demand

The process keeps hot-mix asphalt plant production to a minimum. These plants are often located closest to residential areas.

A cleaner local airshed

Reducing plant production and haul traffic lowers the emissions that settle over the neighborhoods nearest the work.

More of the network maintained

A lower cost per mile allows agencies to care for more roads within the same annual budget.

~3,600

Hot-mix asphalt plants operating nationally

Group 1

IARC classification for hot-mix asphalt production

~400

Fewer loaded truck trips per lane-mile reconstructed in place

Keeping cleaner air in the neighborhood

Roughly 3,600 hot-mix asphalt plants operate across the United States, and their siting often concentrates in lower-income communities that already carry higher pollution burdens. Hot-mix asphalt production is classified by the IARC as a Group 1 process. Minimizing plant production and haul traffic reduces the exposure carried by the neighborhoods nearest the work.