For the first time, Road builder and asphalt producer KWS has used circular asphalt on a large scale. A new asphalt road at Schiphol Trade Park business park is made entirely out of the recycled material.
KWS (subsidiary of VolkerWessels) already used 100 percent of recycled asphalt in 2017, but at the time it was on a small scale and in the form of a pilot project. In addition, the circular asphalt was only used for the underlayment and intermediate layer of the road surface. Now, for the first time, the sustainable material has been used on a large scale and the top layer (the upper layer of the road surface) is also made of the recycled material.
KWS wants to realize a fully circular infrastructure by 2040. The large-scale use of circular asphalt is an important step in the direction of circularity. Recycling asphalt also leads to a CO2 reduction of 75 percent compared to the production of conventional asphalt.
Manufacturing of circular asphalt
KWS takes charge of the production of the sustainable asphalt all by itself, at the Rotterdam asphalt plant. The company collects old asphalt from the region and grinds it into a new raw material, then heats it in a special way. They use indirect heating, which reduces damage to the old asphalt. Finally, rejuvenating oil is added, which gives the bitumen (tar) in the asphalt its flexible properties back. In this way, the raw material is once again suitable for use.
At this moment KWS is preparing the tracks on the circuit of Zandvoort for the arrival of Formula 1. KWS looks at this project as a change to show other manufacturers in the Netherlands what the capabilities are in the field of asphalt construction.
Do you wish to learn more about this topic? https://www.duurzaambedrijfsleven.nl/infra/32797/circulair-asfalt
English 
Dutch