Sustainability Case Study Review of Using Recycled Aggregate in Road Structure

One way in which agencies are being sustainable is by using recycled aggregates in road structures. It is important to evaluate the sustainability of these alternative road construction methods compared to traditional road construction methods. This paper reviewed the sustainability of rehabilitated road structures constructed using crushed reclaimed asphalt and cement concrete rubble. Four key aspects of sustainability were considered - economic, social, environmental and technical. A City of Saskatoon "Green Street" Infrastructure Program case study is presented in this paper. From an economic perspective, significant costs savings are observed compared to the use of traditional virgin road aggregate materials. From a social perspective, residents who use the rehabilitated road will see an equal or improved level of service compared to a traditional structure. Environmentally, because recycled materials are typically locally available and aggregate shortages are forcing justiditions to haul virging aggregates from futher away, fewer emissions are generated due to shorter distances for trucking and less energy is required to be consumed. Less virgin materials are required to be extracted from the earth and less waste material is also generated by recycling construction rubble. Technically, the mechanistic properties of the recycled materials were found to be equal or superior when compared to conventional road building materials. This study illustrates that recycled materials can be used effectively in sustainable road construction when applied within a framework of applied engineering computational mechanics for design and analysis. For the covering abstract of this conference see record control number 201111RT334E.