Excerpt of October 2022 Article Featured in Asphalt Pavement Magazine

BY BENJAMIN F. BOWERS, PE

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, AUBURN UNIVERSITY

“The three tenants of sustainability are people (social), planet (environmental concerns), and the oft-forgotten profit. As a graduate student, I lounged one evening on my porch after a day of pounding out proctor samples in the lab, sipping on a craft beer (my millennial is showing), and reading the book ‘Cradle to Cradle’ by architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart.

That book changed my career trajectory. One of my biggest takeaways was that I could do everything in the world for people and the environment; but if I didn’t make a profit, I would go out of business. That’s not sustainable.

RAP is a great example of cradle-to-cradle. Old binder is binder; old aggregate is aggregate. Asphalt pavement is used as asphalt pavement. How do we, the asphalt pavement industry, leverage sustainability (do good for our neighbors and our world) to also make a profit?”

Read more from the September / October issue of Asphalt Pavement Magazine by scanning the QR Code.

Footnote: Reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) is the term given to removed and/or reprocessed pavement materials containing asphalt and aggregates. These materials are generated when asphalt pavements are removed for reconstruction, resurfacing, or to obtain access to buried utilities. When properly crushed and screened, RAP consists of high-quality, well-graded aggregates coated by asphalt cement.