Eurovia has officially opened Green Aggregates, an advanced processing production facility that recycles aggregate material taken from the highway.
The new Thurrock plant, designed by a specialist team within Eurovia that drew on international knowledge and best practice, is a UK-first that uses ‘advanced reprocessing systems' to deliver ‘consistent sustainable high-quality aggregates' for asphalt production in an effort to reduce the reliance on quarried materials and improve the circular economy in roads.
The Rt Honourable Lord Deben, who unveiled the plant, said: ‘Green Aggregates is not just a financial investment by Eurovia, the new facility represents a commitment to making our roads from as sustainable a material as current technology permits.
'The goal of manufacturing the UK's road surfaces from materials taken from the highway and creating aggregate of the best possible quality raises the bar not just for the UK's road surfacing sector. It asks questions of the standards to which we wish our manufacturing processes to adhere. I commend Eurovia for their ambition and look forward to seeing the results and the progress towards establishing further production plans like this one.'
Eurovia managing director, Paul Goosey, added: ‘We believe Green Aggregates will revolutionise the production of asphalt. The higher levels of repurposed content will raise standards across the industry, and we are keen to talk to industry colleagues and Government about how this can be adopted across the UK.
'By repurposing and reusing of the asphalt layers, or road planings and applying new production systems we will improve performance, adopt a circular approach, reduce energy with under cover stored materials, minimise logistic movements, and significantly decrease demand for quarried aggregates, and reducing imported bitumen.'
