Dive Brief:

• The asphalt-paving industry used less-polluting and lower-cost warm-mix asphalt for about 24% of what it laid down in 2012, a new survey finds.
• The survey, done by the National Asphalt Paving Association under contract to the Federal Highway Administration, is based on answers to questions posed to 1,141 asphalt plants.
• Asphalt-makers also put 68.3 million tons of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) and 1.86 million tons of recycled asphalt shingles (RAS) into the products they turned out in 2012.

Dive Insight:

The use of warm mix rose 416% from the last survey, in 2009, to the current one, which reduced the amount of energy needed for manufacturing and the amount of pollution emitted. The association also said it found that asphalt shingle use, both post-consumer and scrap from manufacturer, rose by 700,000 tons from 2011 to 2012 and saved asphalt-makers about 2.2 million barrels of asphalt binder.