New Asphalt Mixes Containing 50 Percent Recycled Road Pavement, Helping Reduce City’s Carbon Footprint

NYC DOT Truck pictured at the Hamilton Asphalt Plant in Brooklyn, New York. Credit: NYC DOT

New Asphalt Made With 50 Percent Recycled Material Will Reduce Fossil Fuel Use, Save Money, and Cut Down on Amount of Old Roadway Pavement Sent to Landfills

NYC DOT Far Exceeds the 20 Percent National Average of Recycled Road Material Used in Asphalt Production

New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez today commemorated Climate Week in the five boroughs by announcing NYC DOT has begun producing an asphalt mix made with 50 percent recycled roadway material to be piloted on low-traffic streets. The use of recycled asphalt lowers emissions, protects taxpayers dollars, and reduces the amount of waste that goes into landfills. The pilot will allow NYC DOT to evaluate how to incorporate more recycled asphalt in the asphalt it uses to pave our city’s streets. NYC DOT is a national leader in the use of recycled asphalt product, with its current asphalt mixes containing 40 percent recycled materials, doubling the nationwide average of roughly 20 percent recycled materials. In FY24, NYC DOT incorporated 256,392 tons of recycled asphalt in its pavement produced in house.

Cutting Emissions, Cutting Costs, and Cutting Waste

This pilot is a key step to expand NYC DOT’s vision of sustainability, improve savings and reduce impacts to the environment. When NYC DOT resurfaces a street, it first mills the existing roadway. NYC DOT is recapturing that milled material to use in its asphalt mixes. In addition to the environmental benefits, the more milled asphalt NYC DOT reuses, the less stone from quarries the agency needs to purchase, saving money for New York City residents, and reducing environmental impacts from quarry mining.

Additionally, expanding to citywide use of asphalt that is 50 percent recycled roadway material has the potential to divert at least 200 tons of waste from landfills each day, cutting emissions from transportation.

Piloting ‘Greener’ Asphalt

In the first week of the pilot this September, NYC DOT crews paved six locations in Brooklyn, totaling 6.64 lane miles.

NYC DOT will monitor the locations paved with this new mix design on a routine basis to evaluate durability.

At the conclusion of the pilot, the agency will analyze costs and operational impacts with the goal of implementing long term changes to production.