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“Part of this savings can be passed along to the driving public,” he explains. “The time has come for tear-off asphalt shingles to be accepted as another standard recycled material into hot mix asphalt. Tear-off shingles should be part of permissive materials specifications similar to the way RAP and manufacturers’ asphalt shingle scrap are considered by MnDOT today.

“In order to consume any meaningful quantity of tear-off shingles, the HMA industry needs a permissive specification because we want to produce MnDOT certified mixes on a standard, full scale basis,” Kuehborn adds.

One recent study indicated that on a statewide basis, tear-off shingles recovery could reach at least 156,000 tons per year by 2012. Given the oil content within tear-off shingles (at least 20 percent), about 32,000 tons per year of binder (virgin liquid asphalt oil) would be conserved by recycling shingles into HMA pavement.

Using a conservative price estimate of $400 per ton of liquid virgin binder, this savings has an equivalent value of about $12.5 million per year. Also, the savings is equivalent to about 200 kilowatt hours of electricity for every ton of tear-off asphalt shingles recycled.

Rotochopper Inc. is the equipment manufacturer that sold its “RG1” grinder to Dem-Con.

“We have seen numerous successful tear-off shingle recycling businesses around the United States and Canada” says Vince Hundt, vice president of Rotochopper. “Our RG1 grinder can produce a high-quality, finely ground RAS product in one pass. Recyclers like Dem-Con will be able to sell a valuable recycled product to HMA producers.”