27 Mar 2006
TARMAC TAKES THE BISCUIT
Tarmac, a world leader in the development of road surfacing solutions, has launched a highly advanced sustainable alternative to traditional asphalt that makes use of recycled biscuits.
Called Jamsphalt, the road surface is made from a porous sub-base with a specialist high friction surfacing solution made from a bitumen based adhesive, providing a surface bond. Uniquely, both the sub base and the hot bitumen mix top layer incorporate a small proportion of crushed biscuit, which serves to enhance the performance of the asphalt.
The sub base contains ginger nuts to provide superior drainage qualities whereas the top layer makes use of jam sandwich biscuits, or in some instances fig rolls, to provide additional flexibility.
A spokesperson from Tarmac's technical department, says: "The research and development team at Tarmac is among the best in the world and we are always looking for ways to create more durable road surfaces from recycled materials. It sounds crackers, but the biscuit element of Jamsphalt creates a superior road surfacing solution.
"Material of this quality is increasingly required on busy urban routes where there is a higher risk of accidents, for example approaches to roundabouts, pedestrian crossings and on bends. This new solution has the added benefit that it recycles waste material. It just so happens that in this case we're talking about biscuits."
Jamsphalt was finally launched this week after years of intensive testing on a variety of biscuits including chocolate bourbons, shortbread and garibaldis. Dunk tests found ginger nuts to be the most porous and have the best shape retention while jam sandwich biscuits and fig rolls were found to be the most elastic and generally sticky.
However, the inspiration for the product came from an accidental biscuit spillage into hot asphalt by a group of Tarmac workers on a tea break in 1995 while working on the roads around Tarmac's headquarters in Wolverhampton. The road gang, all of whom still work for Tarmac have been granted an extra tea break a day and free biscuits, for life.
Jamsphalt will initially be produced only in small quantities for specialist projects but Tarmac is in talks with a number of major biscuit manufacturers to develop a sustainable supply chain for waste biscuits.
For further information please contact Christine Smart, Delia Elcock, Andy Hutson or Rebecca Cowley on 0121 456 3199 or email: christine.smart@citigatesmarts.co.uk.
