Whilst most of the world is prevaricating on the use of rubberised asphalt, Victoria State in Australia has started trialling a new road surfactant called Tonerseal than combines recycled rubber with recycled toner.
Murray Valley Looks to Road Spray Solution
The new road seal was sprayed onto the existing road pavement on the Murray Valley Highway near Cobram in northern Victoria
Every kilometre of road lane sprayed with the new road seal, developed in Melbourne by the infrastructure services company Downer, uses toner from about 6400 cartridges, as well as recycled rubber from almost 145 car tyres.
“While the new product, known as “Tonerseal”, has been used on less busy roads, applying it to a major highway is a significant development,” said Minister for Roads, Luke Donnellan
“My expectation is that it will be used on a lot more Victorian roads. But we’re just being cautious; we’re doing a more aggressive trial to ensure that we get the durability. And that’s why we’re doing it on the Murray Valley Highway,” he said.
“We’re partnering with industry to make a positive change that benefits local communities, road infrastructure and the environment,” he said.
Dante Cremasco, Downer Road Services executive general manager, said Tonerseal made sound use of a product that is often dumped illegally.
“What we’re doing is ensuring that stockpiles of tyres, illegal dumping of tyres … we’re giving it a proper home and turning it into a premium product for the community,” he said.
The “crumb rubber” from the old car tyres and the toner gives the product “elasticity, so that it performs better under environmental changes and extremes of temperatures,” he said.
“We’ve been pioneering the use of toner, waste toner from printer cartridges, for the last few years in conjunction with Close the Loop, another Melbourne company,” he said.
“We are extremely confident that this product ticks a number of boxes,” he added.
