11th 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 2020.

Highlight features & benefits

• Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement: Asphalt mixture producers remain the country’s most diligent recyclers, with more than 93 percent of asphalt mixture reclaimed from old asphalt pavements being put back to use in new pavements and the remaining 7 percent being used in other civil engineering applications, such as unbound aggregate bases. The percentage of producers reporting use of RAP was at 98.9 percent of respondents, up 1.2 percent from 2019.
  Reclaimed Asphalt Shingles: The total estimated tons of RAS used in asphalt mixtures decreased 36 percent to an estimated 586,000 tons in 2020. This continues the decrease in the use of RAS reported during the 2019 construction season, with utilization at about 70 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 2020 construction season was 186.4 million tons. This was a 13 percent increase from the estimated 164.5 million tons of WMA in 2019, driven by increased WMA tonnage in all sectors.