Excess waste tires in Puerto Rico pose health and fire hazards. A policy was proposed to switch 75% of paving materials to asphalt modified with recycled ground tire rubber (GTR). Recycling would mitigate the health risks and fire hazards while reducing the dependence on the export of waste tires for energy recovery. This study uses a lifecycle assessment (LCA) and two scopes to inform the policy from an environmental perspective. The pavement-level analysis compares the conventional and rubberized pavement pilot sections. The system-level analysis evaluates the consequences of the policy's tire diversion from tire-derived fuel (TDF) to GTR. In doing so, this study bridges the gap between the waste management LCAs (focused on processing and less on the use of recycled products) and pavement LCAs (which assess GTR in pavements but not potential waste stream reductions).
The results of the pavement-level analysis indicated that GTR pavements present higher impacts than their conventional counterparts. The increased impacts of the GTR section are primarily due to the higher binder content, increased mixing energy, and the binder modification process. The system-level analysis revealed that paving in Puerto Rico can use 6–16% of annual waste tires. When TDF replaces environmentally intense kiln fuels (coal and petroleum coke), tire diversion into GTR is not environmentally beneficial. Conversely, when replaced fuels are more environmentally friendly (coal and natural gas), tire diversion to GTR may present benefits. With the use of greener fuels in the cement industry, GTR deployment may gain interest.
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