Kentucky Counties Testing Rubber-Modified Asphalt

Calloway County, Kentucky is one of six Kentucky counties taking part in a study to determine the effectiveness of using asphalt made with recycled tires to resurface roads.

Calloway County received a $56,100 grant for a rubber-modified asphalt project utilizing waste tires. The grant was part of a $482,749 total in grant funding that went to six counties, which also included Hardin ($114,514), Simpson ($85,830), McLean ($85,000), Butler ($101,430) and Green ($39,875) counties.

The Kentucky Environmental and Energy Cabinet (EEC) said the grant funding would be used for the application of chip seal or asphalt overlay to county or metro government roads. Chip seal is a road surface treatment that combines one or more layers of asphalt with one or more layers of fine aggregate and can extend the life of a road by four to eight years, the EEC said. Asphalt overlay is a new layer of asphalt applied over an existing asphalt surface and can extend the road life by seven to 10 years, the EEC said.

The funding comes from the Waste Tire Trust Fund, which receives $2 from every new tire sold in the state.

County road officials plan to start the project around the middle of September, depending on the weather. Initially a mile of roadway will be paved with the rubberized chip-and-seal, and will serve as the county’s test road. A mile section on a second road will be paved with the regular chip-and-seal and the county will do a five-year study on it to see which one performed the best.

County officials said it is a 50/50 grant, which means the grant pays for the mile of rubber-modified asphalt and the county will pay for the mile of regular chip-and-seal. In its criteria for the project, EEC specified the two roads to be close together and have similar traffic counts, and over the next five years, the state will periodically check on the roads to compare their conditions.

© Scrap Tire News, September 2020