Your dog will probably not agree, but after something has been eaten, it is often not as tasty the second time. No matter how it comes out. Apologies to the visual thinkers. Rijkswaterstaat clearly agrees with the four-legged friends, because they now have a train that eats old asphalt and then poops it out again as a fresh new layer. For example, asphalt is recycled on site.
The train is called Asphalt Recycling Train, but you can call it ART. The train first heats the covering layer of the asphalt. This causes the asphalt to melt and the train to eat the heated substance. Once in the belly of the train, the asphalt is loosened and mixed with new raw materials. After this, the layer can be returned to the road surface and the roller can go over it to smooth the new layer.
After six hours the asphalt is new again
According to Rijkswaterstaat, the road can reopen six hours later, although this of course depends on the length of the road. If the thing drives from Utrecht to Amsterdam, the highway will be closed for a little longer. In any case, the train has already renovated a parking lot along the highway. Rijkswaterstaat is very satisfied with the results so far.
The invention is quite ingenious, because you don’t have to produce new asphalt, because you reuse the old stuff. You only need the raw materials to mix under the old asphalt. In addition, trucks do not have to drive up and down to deliver the new material and remove the old stuff.
65 percent fewer emissions
Because only the train is working, 65 percent less CO2 would be emitted when renewing the asphalt. RWS says nothing about nitrogen. And it gets even more fun for Mother Nature. Later this year there will be a new machine that converts hydrogen into electricity. This means that the large group of employees in orange overalls probably emits more bad odors than the ART.
Meet ART (Asphalt Recycling Train)! This machine turns old asphalt into new asphalt.✨ #CircularEconomy pic.twitter.com/7UbYpvaIU0
— Rijkswaterstaat (@Rijkswaterstaat) March 14, 2024