What product is recycled the most in the United States?
Americans who recycle their aluminum cans, newspapers, plastics and glass are helping to preserve our nation’s resources. But daily and quietly, the Hot Mix Asphalt industry is recycling asphalt pavement to a substantially larger extent. Asphalt pavement is unquestionably the nation’s most widely recycled product. The Federal Highway Administration reports that 73 million metric tons of the 91 million metric tone (or 80.3 million of the 100.1 million tons) of asphalt pavement that is removed each year during resurfacing and widening projects is reused as part of new roads, roadbeds, shoulders and embankments. That’s a recycling rate of 80 percent. In terms of tonnage, only scrap metal comes close at 70 million tons, which represents a recycling rate of 64 percent for steel. A possible misconception is the extent to which the recycling of consumer goods occurs. The EPA says Americans recycle only 28 percent of the materials in the municipal solid waste stream. The EPA says that of the 2
