The Regional Ministry for Development reuses materials to repair road surfaces, to promote eco-efficiency and the circular economy

23/03/2021

It is using this technique, contained in the Sustainable Construction and Architecture Strategy, in roadworks on the regional road connecting the Murcian districts of Zeneta and Los Ramos

The Regional Ministry for Development and Infrastructure has been reusing damaged materials to repair the surface of a road linking the Murcian districts of Zeneta and Los Ramos, which means a reduction in the use and exploitation of dwindling natural resources at the same time as reducing atmospheric emissions.

The General Director for Highways, José Antonio Fernández Lladó, today paid a visit to the roadworks on the RM-F16 where this technique is being used to repair the road surface on a section just over a kilometre long. He explained that "we want to encourage eco-efficiency and the circular economy in regional building works, as laid out in the Sustainable Construction and Architecture Strategy (EACS)".

"In these works, we are using less virgin aggregate to produce the asphalt mixes, by replacing them with waste from the drilling of the works themselves, from which we will use approximately 20 percent of the drilled material", the director stated.

When repairing the worn sections, we will reuse material from the road itself by drilling a 5-centimetre layer of the road surface in order to then transfer that material to the asphalt agglomerate plant. The drilled material will be subjected to studies and tests by the department's laboratory and, once it has been mixed into the bitumen emulsion, it will be spread and compacted on the previously-drilled surface.

Fernández Lladó stated that the works, valued at over 48.000 euros, will solve the cracks in the surface, subsidence and crocodile skin that the road currently suffers from as a result of the large volume of heavy goods vehicles, which amount to over 1,000 vehicles out of the total of 6,075 that travel daily on the RM-F16.

Photograph: The General Director for Highways, José Antonio Fernández Lladó, and the Councillor for Districts and Neighbourhoods, Marco Antonio Fernández, during their visit to the roadworks to fix the surface of the road between the Murcian districts of Los Ramos and Zeneta (RM-F16), which are using a new technique that reuses worn materials from the same road.