Environmental sustainability and energy assessment of bituminous pavements made with unconventional materials

The increasing sensibility towards the questions related to climate change has made the scientists and technicians aware of the need to incorporate the principles of sustainable development into the road construction sector. In this view, recycled materials in road pavements and technologies to decrease the overall carbon footprint have become more and more important. Based on the ISO14040 series, the overall purpose of this study is calculating, by means of a systemic approach, the life-cycle energy and the carbon footprint of road pavement solutions. To this aim, several alternatives in terms of bituminous mixtures (warm mix asphalt, reclaimed asphalt pavements, waste plastics) were considered. All the phases of pavement life from material production to end-of-life stages were taken into account. Results demonstrate that even if there is not a best alternative from all the angles of the analysis, however, the WMA technology, combined with the use of RAP, improves the pavement energy and environmental performance, involving a reduction in primary energy consumption and raw materials, and avoiding impacts for disposal.