Eco-Friendly Recycling

We are a committed partner of Colorado’s Roofs To Roads program- an effort to help ensure that the materials discarded when we repair or replace your roof don’t end up in a landfill, and instead are recycled into asphalt for Colorado’s roads.

Did you know that the discarded roofing materials from a single home exceed the average trash output from that same home over an entire year? The fact of the matter is there’s a lot of stuff up there, and it just makes sense to put it to good use.

The Roofs to Roads Project was launched in February 2009, after two years of planning and initial work. Roofs to Roads is working in the public interest with support from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Pollution Prevention Advisory Board, Advanced Technology Grant, from Boulder County Resource Conservation Division’s Community Outreach Program, and from Region 8 of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Goals of Roofs to Roads

  • to collect 5,000 tons of shingles from roofing demolition projects (16,000 tons to date)
  • to pave a road in Boulder County with recycled asphalt shingles from Tear-Offs (one project complete, on North 63rd Street in Boulder County), and
  • to support the development of markets for this technology, and facilitate more paving projects throughout the state.

Positive Impacts

Recycled asphalt shingles (RAS) can replace a significant percentage of asphalt-cement virgin binder asphalt used for paving roads. In 2009, paving projects completed with RAS are using a 5% mix. Positive impacts include:

  • Every ton of virgin binder replaced with RAS avoids 27 tons of C02 emissions.
  • The project will divert 5,000 tons of shingles from landfills in 2009.
  • Market analysis in Missouri and other states shows the potential savings of over $1,500 per mile of road, for each inch of paving depth, by using RAS.
  • Data coming in from Missouri and Minnesota show several years of high performance for roads with RAS content.
  • This project is be monitored by the Colorado Department of Transportation, (CDOT).
  • The success of the Roofs to Roads project will put Colorado in a leadership position for reducing green house gases and innovative use of RAS.

To learn more about Roofs to Roads, visit: www.roofs2roadscolorado.org