8th Annual Asphalt Pavement Industry Survey on Recycled Materials and Warm-Mix Asphalt Usage

A shared goal of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA) is to support and promote sustainable practices, such as incorporating recycled materials in pavement mixtures and the use of warm-mix asphalt (WMA). This report documents the results of the industry survey for the 2016 construction season, including the survey methodology, results, trends, and changes from 2009 through 2017.

Highlight features & benefits

• Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement: The total estimated tons of RAP used in asphalt mixtures was 76.2 million tons in 2017. This is a 0.91 percent decrease from the 2016 construction season, but represents a greater than 36 percent increase from the total estimated tons of RAP used in 2009. During the same time frame, total asphalt mixture tonnage increased only 5.9 percent.
  Reclaimed Asphalt Shingles: The total estimated tons of RAS used in asphalt mixtures decreased 32 percent to an estimated 944,000 tons in 2017. This downward trend in the use of RAS has persisted since 2015; still, the use of RAS in the 2017 construction season was 34 percent above the estimated 701,000 tons used in asphalt mixtures in 2009.
• Warm-Mix Asphalt Technologies: The estimated total tonnage of asphalt pavement mixtures produced at reduced temperatures with WMA technologies for the 2017 construction season was 147.4 million tons. This was a 26 percent increase from the estimated 116.8 million tons of WMA in 2016, driven largely by increased WMA tonnage in the Commercial & Residential and the DOT sectors.