9th 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 2018.

Highlight features & benefits

• Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement: The total estimated tons of RAP used in asphalt mixtures was 82.2 million tons in 2018. This is a nearly 7.9 percent increase from the 2017 construction season, and represents a nearly 46.8 percent increase from the total estimated tons of RAP used in 2009. Since 2009, total asphalt mixture tonnage has increased only 8.6 percent.
  Reclaimed Asphalt Shingles: The total estimated tons of RAS used in asphalt mixtures rebounded 11.6 percent to an estimated 1.05 million tons in 2018. This reversed much of the drop in the use of RAS reported during the 2017 construction season, but is still about 45 percent below the 2014 peak level of reported usage.
• Warm-Mix Asphalt Technologies: The estimated total tonnage of asphalt pavement mixtures produced with WMA technologies for the 2018 construction season was 157.7 million tons. This was a 7 percent increase from the estimated 147.4 million tons of WMA in 2017, driven largely by increased WMA tonnage in the Other Agency sector, but changes to the reporting of WMA utilization at reduced temperatures from 2017 to 2018 may have also been a factor.