Stick or Carrot

The use of suitable reclaimed construction materials being recycled in to products for re-use in the highway maintenance and construction industry played a significant part of the recent amendment to the Specification for Highway Work - Volume One. 
Clauses were included in the document to allow the use of significantly more recycled product and at the same time ensure it was of a suitable engineering quality, these products being mainly differing types of sub-base, and recycled bituminous material for binder course and base (basecourse and roadbase).
( I will leave you to peruse Volume One, but the "800" and "900" series are where you will find most of the information I refer to. )
Soon after the publication of this specification came the introduction of the Aggregate Tax, which added approximately £1:60 to every tonne of stone quarried. 
A little bit more than this was added to each tonne of stone based product sold to cover administrative costs in collecting the tax, and as far as my experience goes all this was added on to the price to the customer, so a fixed budget is going to buy less materials for maintaining roads.
The idea of this tax was to discourage the quarrying of virgin aggregate and encourage the use of recycled products, which is an excellent aim.
However, I am unsure as to who it is being encouraged to use recycled materials, as it appears ALL products being supplied carry the increased cost.
Therefore it is my opinion that at the present time there is no cost benefit to the purchasers of recycled products and therefore little encouragement to use them in a hard financial world.
It is my belief that the current situation gives a financial "carrot" to the producers and suppliers active in recycling, which is a good situation to create. 
But do not expect those responsible for managing budgets to be pleased about the arrangement when their already limited budgets become even more limited for maintaining the highway network, for which they have responsibility, due to the overall increased cost of materials.

I was just thinking aloud as to whether this was the situation "the suits at the top" intended to create.

TRL "Triton" Noise Survey Machine

I have recently had experience of working with this machine during the "day job".
I was impressed, and although I must honour the confidentiality of the organisation I work for, I think I can say we all found the results very interesting. 
Those of you who are also involved in maintaining highway networks, and caught in the debate of what is and what is not a "noisy" road surface, may find the use of "Triton" equally interesting.    
In the mean time you must visit the TRL site "Environment Reports and Papers" , this is a rather good small section of their impressive site which contains a number of absolutely excellent reports relating to noise and road surfaces.  

If you want to know about road/tyre noise in relation to different types of road surface and the relationship with texture depth and road surface friction this is the place to start.
All reports are able to be downloaded in .pdf format and are free, at the present time you do not even have to register.
It is my opinion that the "powers that be" must be pretty keen for the highway engineering fraternity to have this information, so that they may make reasoned judgments on what materials to use and where to use them, also what implications their decisions could have in general highways maintenance terms.
I would suggest you take advantage of the above link as soon as possible, just in case its ready availability disappears.

Bad News / Good News

Bad News - The price of bitumen has just gone up 20%, and this has all been passed on to the customer by the producers of bituminous materials.
I do not know what the reason for this current increase is, as far as I am aware the oil price is still lower than it was 12 to 18 months ago when we had a large bitumen price rise due to the increased cost of oil. 
Perhaps it is due to the increased demand for bitumen based surfacing materials because of the increased demand following the increased budget from central government for spending on highways maintenance. ( This extra budget is rapidly eroding, see the first item.)
It might even be a result of the fact that a only handful of companies produce practically all the bitumen supplied in the U.K., and 85% of that is used in the construction and maintenance of asphalt roads.
It may be due to the increased use of modified bitumens and proprietary road surfacing materials.
Whatever the reason for the increase, and I am sure somebody will explain it, the fact is bituminous based road building materials are becoming very expensive compared to what they were just ten years ago.

Good News - Recycling bituminous materials is becoming cost effective. and I would even say quite profitable, or cost saving, depending on whether you are a contractor or highway maintaining authority.
The situation I particularly refer to is small tonnage work, twenty to thirty tonnes a day, patching and footway work.
There are now a number of recently developed machines on the market in the U.K. and from around the world, that can safely and effectively reprocess reclaimed bituminous materials, in small batches. If you employ these machines in conjunction with a "hot-box" storage system you are in a position to meet a part of your small tonnage demand.
There are also machines, heaters, that can allow the reprocessing of bituminous road surfaces while it is still part of the road pavement.
If you have not checked out these processes I really do think it is time you did.

And just to wet your appetite I will suggest just one example, for you to think about. the responsibility is with you to get the process right should you wish to pursue it.

Traditional hot rolled asphalt wearing course has a bitumen content, on average, of 7.8% by mass, the chippings in the surface will lower this just slightly.
If you mixed HRA planings with a suitably graded dry stone on a fifty/fifty basis and reheat them in a "remixer", perhaps adding 10 kgms. per tonne of a lower viscosity binder, to "rejuvenate" and lower the viscosity of the existing binder, the result will be a very acceptable "basecourse" patching material at a very acceptable price.

Bitumen is a quite wonderful material, it may harden slightly in use, but it does not lose its fundamental property of being thermoplastic, i.e. workable when hot and stable at ambient temperatures.
What you must NEVER, NEVER do is overheat it, and that applies to new materials as well as recycled products.  

Clearly to be able to undertake these processes you are going to need technical backup to ensure the bituminous mixtures you produce are fit for purpose and of consistent quality. But it is not "rocket science" and it is my belief that any reasonably sized authority, consultancy or contractor should have few materials knowledgeable people as part of their workforce. 
(Ask yourself how much money you spend, or authorise spending, on construction materials of one type or another, a significant amount I would suggest.)
If you do not have these people may I suggest you start training them, as they will be needed sooner or later, pieces of paper however well intended will not replace good engineers and technicians.

Further information on  Recycling Bituminous Materials can be found on this site, along with links to other sites that include costings on the process.
Explanatory leaflets that include some related to recycling bituminous materials can be downloaded in .pdf format from the Aggregate Information Service that is found on the Viridis website.

At least check out this new technology, you may find you can be environmentally friendly and make or save a few pounds as well.  

Motto of the Month

"There are people who have money and people who are rich."