There is something inherently rewarding about seeing an old material get a second lease on life rather than being discarded. In 1980, engineers in New Jersey reused about 14,000 tons of milled road surface from U.S. Route 1 on a highway project. They used the material to create 27,000 tons of asphalt paving mix for the shoulders of U.S. Route 130, as noted in a 1980 US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) research paper titled Bituminous Concrete Pavement Recycling . The project saved $50,346 and 12,753 tons of stone aggregate compared with a conventional mix. It was a practical decision: instead of treating the worn-out asphalt as useless, engineers found a way to put it back to work.
The road that refused to become waste
