Abstract
Although roads are indispensable to our daily life and people can benefit from their social and economic role by enabling movement, they have a significant impact on the environment. Therefore, it is crucial to identify ways to mitigate their environmental influence and make them more sustainable. Using pavement engineering knowledge and methods, environmental and sustainability concepts and indicators, the AsSuRe Bio project seeks to integrate into the ongoing research ecosystem for sustainable and resilient roads and to focus on the recyclability, circularity, and – often neglected during the creation phase - environmental compatibility of urban pavements containing both a consequent amount of recycled asphalt and bio-waste or bio-by-products materials from other industries (up to 100%), possibly sourced in regional value chain actors. The project, jointly conducted at the Sustainable Pavements and Asphalt Research group (SuPAR) at the University of Antwerp and the Sustainability of Chemicals and Materials group at the Aachen-Maastricht Institute for Biobased Materials' (AMIBM-SCM) at Maastricht University, aims to address technical, environmental, and socio-economic-related aspects following a holistic and integrated approach. It aims to overcome the obstacles and challenges encountered regarding the use of such innovative materials in urban systems. Another goal is to emphasise the benefits of less and low-energy-consuming processes, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and related issues in cities, by highlighting the overall well-being benefits and the inclusion of secondary usage and circularity. It presents the necessary steps to be taken to consider the full implementation of circular economy principles in the urban road to participate in improving the road's environmental impact ensuring safe, resilient, and sustainable infrastructures and more liveable cities.
Researcher(s)
Research team(s)
Project type(s)