7 July 2006 - TARMAC COMPLETES FIRST START TO FINISH ROAD RECYCLING CONTRACT
Having extended its road recycling capability since the start of the year, Tarmac has just successfully completed its first start to finish road recycling contract in Coventry
PWorking in partnership with Coventry City Council, Tarmac has resurfaced two 1 kilometre stretches of road - one at Lentons Lane and the other at Tamworth Road, providing access to Coventry's city ring road. The work has been carried out using the latest road recycling plant and equipment, as part of an on-going Highways Maintenance contract.
In order to complete the contract, Tarmac has used new, state of the art processing plant and equipment, which was located at a site equidistant from the two roads, to process the recovered planings. The recycled material was then mixed to produce a foamed bitumen-based asphalt, called Tarmac FoamMaster, before being re-laid to provide a durable sub base layer. By recycling as much as possible, only a small quantity of new aggregate was used to complete the top surface.
Paul Fleetham, Tarmac's national contracting director, comments:
"The successful completion of this contract represents a breakthrough in sustainable pavement technology and Tarmac is leading the way, with the help of Coventry City Council.
"For the first time we have been able to use 5000 tonnes of recycled material to construct the lower layers of the new road surfaces, to a depth of up to 250 mm in places, without the need to sub-contract any part of our service. It is a total Tarmac solution, from start to finish."
As part of Tarmac's quality assurance, the recycling mix fulfilled the Highways Agency's requirement for stiffness and met standards specified in TRL 611, 2004, which provides a guide to the use and specification of cold recycled materials.
For Coventry City Council, there are many benefits to this new start to finish road recycling service. Alex Brown, area services manager at Coventry City Council comments:
"We were delighted to discover that Tarmac could provide a complete road recycling service and we are looking forward to applying this more widely.
"Driven by our Local Agenda 21 we are constantly looking for more sustainable construction methods and by limiting use of virgin aggregates in this way, we are protecting much need environmental resources for the benefit of future generations."
Tarmac has extensive experience in managing and implementing major scale road recycling contracts, including the UK's biggest road recycling contract to date on the A38 in Devon, which completed earlier this year. The company is now looking forward to working with local authorities around the country to apply its new start to finish road recycling service.
