Arizona gave millions of discarded tyres a second use when it began covering sections of its Phoenix-area freeways with rubberised asphalt. The material, made with crumb rubber from used tyres, was initially valued mainly as a way to resurface roads and recycle a difficult waste product. But the pavement also had another benefit: it could reduce the noise created when vehicle tyres travelled over the road. According to the Federal Highway Administration , Arizona and the agency launched the Quiet Pavement Pilot Program in 2003 to examine whether asphalt rubber friction courses could reduce traffic noise on busy freeways and how long the effect would last. The programme covered about 115 miles of Phoenix-area freeways and involved testing the pavement's noise performance over time.
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