Narrator: Asphalt pavement
might be the world's most recycled material.
My gut feeling is that asphalt
can be recycled indefinitely.
Narrator: But most recycling plants
mix just a small amount of old product
into mostly new pavement.
That means we have to keep mining rocks and drilling oil
just to keep roads in shape.
One company says it's found a way
to make 100% recycled asphalt.
Jim: You ask any old-time asphalt guy,
and they give you a dirty look
and laugh and say it's impossible, it doesn't work.
Narrator: For years, Green Asphalt fought
to prove its product is durable enough for New York City.
Recycled asphalt usually costs less than the brand new stuff.
But if it's that simple,
why isn't everyone rolling out roads
made from worldwide waste?
Asphalt has two main ingredients:
crushed rocks and a sticky mixture that holds them together.
That goop is mostly bitumen,
a fossil fuel originally found in tar pits.
People have been using this stuff for thousands of years
to waterproof containers, build stone walls, and seal boats.
Its first use on a road was likely in Babylon
more than 2,500 years ago.
Asphalt roads came to the US in the late 1800s,
and within a few decades,
demand grew so much that natural sources couldn't keep up.
So it became more common to make bitumen using crude oil.
As oil prices rose in the 1970s,
more people started reusing old pavement to cut costs.
But regulators often limit how much old material
can go into new mixes, usually around 30%
because of concerns that adding more would make roads weaker.
That creates leftovers that can pile up.
If New York is going to mill up 1 million tons of asphalt
and only is allowed to replace it with 30% recycled,
what are you going to do with those 700,000 extra tons?
It has to go somewhere.
Narrator: 100% recycled asphalt
could make use of all of it
and eliminate the need for rocks mined from quarries.
Jim: The carbon footprint savings is the fact
that we don't have to truck stone and oil
from all over upstate New York.
Narrator: In a place like New York City,
which is almost always tearing up its roads
to access utility lines underneath,
asphalt recycling is a perfect match.
You can pave a brand new road,
and then Con Ed will come and dig a trench through it.
Nothing stays down for 10 years, anyway.
Narrator: To strip old asphalt off the road,
workers use either a specialized machine
that cuts and grinds up the pavement,
or less precise methods.
These old pavement pieces are called millings,
and cities have to figure out what to do with all of them.
Jim: To recycle it saves a tremendous amount of money.
You're not trucking it upstate.
You're not trucking it to landfills.
Narrator: Their next stop is this plant.
Narrator: On a typical day, Green Asphalt receives
up to 50 dump trucks' worth of product.
So back here is where trucks full
of New York City's asphalt,
old millings, come in and get dumped every day.
Narrator: Most of them will get right back in line
and leave the plant filled with fresh, recycled asphalt.
But the first step is crushing up the millings.
Anthony: That machine on top of the pile
is our excavator.
He grabs the material, throws it in the crusher,
and that's where we process the material.
Narrator: A magnet picks out any metals.
Garbage, debris, leaves.
The stuff that you see
laying all over the New York City streets
does not make good asphalt.
If any plastic or road striping
or fabric from the road base gets in it,
that gets picked out by hand.
Narrator: A conveyor belt
carries the pieces through screens
that sort them into three sizes:
black sand, small rocks, and bigger ones.
They'll be mixed back together
in different combinations
depending on whether the asphalt will be used for potholes,
private roads, or highways.
Then it's time to turn up the heat.
This flaming drum warms
and mixes the asphalt at the same time.
Anthony: After it's reached the temperature
of 300 degrees,
it's properly mixed.
It comes out of the drum.
We douse it with half a percent of a paraffin oil.
Narrator: Paraffin oil is still a type of fossil fuel,
but recycling has lower overall emissions
compared to making new product.
The paraffin helps rejuvenate old asphalt,
which degrades as it sits on roads.
It basically brings it back to life.
Narrator: These mixes have to stay hot
in order to spread onto roads smoothly,
so the clock is ticking.
Anthony: Asphalt has to be made and sold within 24 hours.
You can't leave it up there for too long.
Narrator: The final product
is temporarily stored in silos.
Anthony: You try to get three silos full of material,
so as trucks start to take it,
you're just running and keeping up with the trucks.
Narrator: These aren't just any trucks, though.
Jim: The trucks are designed
where the exhaust from the truck
runs through the body of the truck,
and that actually helps keep it warm.
Narrator: Green Asphalt mixes will end up on roads
all over New York City.
Here in Queens, workers are repaving two city blocks
using 100% recycled asphalt.
It'll take 14 workers about five hours.
Anthony Rozza has been in this business
for a decade.
More and more companies are starting
to use recycled asphalt, but not fully recycled.
We are one of the few companies actually
using 100% recycled.
Narrator: These pavers say it's no different to work with
than conventional asphalt.
At the beginning of this job,
excavators tore old asphalt off the road.
It'll head back to Green Asphalt
to start the process all over again.
The company sold its first 100% recycled product in 2011.
Convincing customers it would be as durable
as new asphalt was a big hurdle.
Jim: We had to almost give stuff away for free.
Everyone just has that old mindset.
Like, if it's not broken, don't fix it.
Narrator: The company runs quality tests every day
to make sure each batch meets government standards,
which vary depending on its final use.
Matt: Different things on bridges,
different things for tunnels,
different things for airport runways, things like that.
Narrator: Matt Harrison runs those tests,
which include checking how much air and moisture
is in each batch.
Matt: A lot of people
that don't use a lot of recycled material
don't think it can be done,
because they don't process it the way we do.
They don't test for all the little things that we do.
Narrator: Despite the extra steps,
Green Asphalt says its fully recycled mix
is the cheapest option.
Jim: Our asphalt product here,
which is 100% recycled,
is actually 20% cheaper than our conventional asphalt.
Narrator: In fact, one study found that
the more you recycle, the more costs fall,
mostly because you don't have to buy new rocks
or binder to hold them together.
That helps explain why in countries like the US, Japan,
and Finland, more than 90% of old asphalt gets reused
in new roads.
But if it's cheaper,
why isn't fully recycled asphalt more popular?
For years, asphalt producers and recyclers
have fought a common enemy, blue smoke.
It's a catchall nickname
for air pollution released while making asphalt.
Some of these emissions can cause blood and liver problems.
The more recycled asphalt in a mix,
the more pollution you can get.
Green Asphalt says it's found a way
to minimize that problem.
You have to find the right distance between the flame
and the aggregate so you don't catch on fire.
Narrator: But even then,
the process can create some blue smoke.
The company told us its filtration system catches it.
Matt: It actually uses some water
and patented bags that we designed ourselves here
that filter out anything
that could be harmful to the environment.
Narrator: The idea is to clean up the emissions
before they actually leave this smokestack.
Blue smoke concerns are one reason many asphalt makers
stick to about 30% recycled mixes.
Older plants can't safely go above that
without new equipment.
Jim says economic incentives also play a key role
because many asphalt plant owners also own quarries.
They own the stone
or the oil supply that they're using in their products.
Why would they want to recycle
when they're using their own product
and selling their own product?
We're trying to break that trend.
We don't want to buy stone, we don't want to buy oil.
We want to make recycled asphalt.
Narrator: Even if the whole world
did switch to recycled asphalt,
there'd still be some downsides.
The black pavement absorbs heat,
which is part of why cities are up to 5 degrees hotter
than nearby areas.
Alternatives, such as concrete,
create a lot more planet-warming pollution
but usually don't need to be replaced as often.
Asphalt has stayed popular because it offers a smooth ride
and its formula can be tweaked
for different weather conditions.
And since it's probably not going away anytime soon,
we might as well recycle as much as possible.
Jim: Our mission is really for all asphalt
to be green asphalt across the world.
If people think your dream is crazy,
then you must be doing something right.
When everyone said we couldn't do it,
made us want to do it even more.