A group of seven councils in the south east of England have come together to change the culture of the road maintenance industry in a bid to make it more sustainable and save money.
The so-called SE7 Group wants to significantly reduce waste when roads are resurfaced by recycling the material directly back into road construction, instead of depending on expensive virgin materials like bitumen and quarried aggregate – both of which are becoming increasingly unsustainable.
Councils in the SE7 group are Surrey County Council, Brighton & Hove City Council, East Sussex County Council, Hampshire County Council, Kent County Council, Medway County Council and West Sussex County Council. Between them they spend £300m a year on highway maintenance, of which around £45m is on traditional asphalt materials that have bitumen and aggregate as key ingredients.
Dan Smith, highways category specialist in Surrey County Council’s Procurement & Commissioning Department, said that initially by recycling 15-20% more waste they ultimately expect to save £8.5m a year. The plan would be to increase the volume of recycled content incrementally.
Smith said that recycling was already widespread on the continent. “In the Netherlands, asphalt materials with high percentage recycled waste content have been used alongside traditional materials since the early 1980s. This has been possible because of state intervention into the supply market and an internal culture receptive to change.”
Smith said that by doing this as a consortium they hoped to encourage the supply chain it was worth investing in new equipment, and they are confident once the precedent has been established other local authorities would follow suit.
“The government’s announcement in June that billions of pounds is to be invested in road repairs by 2021 demonstrated the importance of road maintenance to the economy and provides the vital opportunity to use this investment to bring about lasting change that delivers better value to the public purse and is far more sustainable for the planet,” said Smith.
He added: “At the moment a majority of recycling is in low grade applications like hard standing for farm tracks – which is not where the true value of the waste can be attained.
The UK asphalt supply market is very traditional – it’s not that they are resistant to change, but recycling material in this volume requires a big investment of new equipment which they won’t make until they are confident there will be a market.”
