UsedFULLY Limited received funding of $182,238 (excluding GST) to carry out laboratory research on the incorporation of end-of-life / waste textile fibres into chipseal.
This project was in response to one of Hoe ki angitū, the NZTA Innovation Fund’s round one challenges: Accelerating the use of recycled materials and sustainable practices.
The objective of the project was to determine whether the volume of bitumen used to make chipseal in New Zealand could be reduced by mixing in waste textiles, bringing benefits by reducing the carbon emissions of roadmaking, improving the supply chain for roading materials, and recycling a waste stream which otherwise goes to landfill.
The project involved shredding waste textiles into a range of different lengths and thicknesses, mixing it into bitumen in different proportions, and then testing both the bitumen and chipseal made with it at the temperatures at which chipseal is most at risk of failing.
The key findings of the project were that finely shredded waste fibre could replace up to 10% of bitumen by weight when used in chipseal. The resulting chipseal was more resistant to failure at both the typical cold and hot failure points than standard bitumen. This may bring an additional benefit of more durable chipseal resulting in reduced maintenance expenditure.
The next step in this innovation is to ascertain whether the road surface would shed fibre through wear, work out how best to deploy the fibre-modified bitumen in the production process, and carry out real-world trials.
Note – due to commercial sensitivity only the executive summary of this report is available for public viewing.
View the executive summary here:
| Bagshaw, S., & Crowe, D. (2023). Recycling Textile Fibres [PDF, 5.8 MB]. Executive summary. Project: HKA 1.1.16. UsedFULLY. |
