In the late 1970s, a Wyoming section of I-80 used 85% recycled pavement; an FHWA review reported that it lasted 12 years before rehabilitation

Somewhere on Interstate 80 in Wyoming, during the last few years of the Disco era, state crews performed a cost-saving experiment that would later be validated as sound engineering. They ripped up a section of their crumbling road, crushed up the existing asphalt, and mixed in a small amount of newly produced binder/lime. This resulted in 85% recycled material being laid down as new asphalt. According to a Federal Highway Administration review into pavement recycling, this recycled-asphalt test section lasted for 12 years before needing any work done. This is equivalent to the lifespan expected of traditional overlays.

This wasn’t celebrated with any fanfare, press releases or viral videos, but they did some maths at some point during the oil price spikes of the embargo and realised they didn’t need to lay down entirely new roads. It’s quite amusing to find this information in a Federal Archive from the late 90s, but when looking at the current headlines of 2026, everything seems to mention Supply Chains and whether the planet can afford our lifestyle.

The takeaway: we have known this for 50 years


The sad news is that asphalt recycling isn’t a new idea from a start-up; it’s a 111-year-old one. As noted in the same FHWA review, recycled pavement was produced as early as 1915, but it really took off during the Arab oil embargo of the mid-1970s, when it became standard practice. America’s highway engineers had realised that they could produce new roads from existing roads 50 years ago. This was mostly due to recycled binder being cheaper than virgin asphalt cement. The positive impact on the environment was a bonus.

Today, the industry has become one of the most consistent recyclers in the country. According to the National Asphalt Pavement Association’s 2023 industry survey (conducted with the Federal Highway Administration), more than 89% of the asphalt mixture reclaimed from old pavements was put back into new asphalt pavements that year, with the remaining roughly 11% used in other engineering applications such as unbound aggregate bases. Most of the remaining asphalt is used in other construction. Almost 40% of all asphalt mixtures produced in the US use warm-mix technology, which reduces the energy required to lay down the asphalt. This isn’t a trial confined to one city, but standard practice on roads many people travel every week.

Why are our roads falling apart?

Unfortunately, things aren’t as pretty as you might think. If recycling asphalt can be so effective and has been for decades, then why do we feel like our roads are falling apart? According to the Roads category of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2025 Infrastructure Report Card, US roads received a D+ grade, up slightly from a D in 2021. 39% of major roads were classed as poor or mediocre. This has led to the average driver spending over $1,400 per year in extra vehicle costs and lost time due to bad roads.

Recycling the pavement itself isn’t the issue, but getting the money to maintain, inspect, and rehabilitate in a timely manner has been an issue in America for decades. This is an important note to take on board. Whilst the technique has worked as effectively as or better than traditional paving methods in numerous states, it is a way to save money and reduce waste. However, it requires political will to actually get the next repaving scheduled.

The bottomline

That same stretch of I-80 in Wyoming still holds a lesson most of us never hear about: some of the most boring decisions we make about infrastructure have worked better than expected for half a century. The asphalt industry largely solved its recycling problem decades ago. The rest of the system, funding and scheduling, is still catching up.