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By David Opinko

Lethbridge College grads named award finalists for turning tires into asphalt

Jun 21, 2021 | 3:17 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – It used to be that tires were only meant for driving on the roads, but thanks to a group of recent Lethbridge College students, they are the roads themselves.

Amy Gregorchuk, Liudmyla Wagner, and Daniel Mitchell were finalists for the Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta’s (ASET) Capstone Project of the Year Award.

They graduated from the college’s Civil Engineering Technology program in 2020.

Gregorchuk told LNN that they explored turning old rubber tires into asphalt.

“We decided to examine the effect of including crumb rubber in hot-mix asphalt, and basically, we wanted to see what kinds of sustainability might be achieved for future road design.”

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“[The tires] go to a factory that strips things down, pulls all the metal and the stuff that you really don’t want to reuse in the asphalt that might become an issue, and then you can either melt the product into the bitumen or you can use it as an aggregate for your asphalt.”

The group considered using materials such as glass, but because there had been more research into that area, they decided to take the road less studied.

A series of experiments were conducted using two different types of crumb rubbers. It was determined that recycled crumb rubber would be an applicable ingredient in hot-mix asphalt.

CM Consulting estimates that more than 28-million tires are discarded in Canada every year in one way or another. A report from the Canadian Association of Tire Recycling Agencies (CATRA) found that 418,062 tires were recycled in 2017.

“We wanted to find a way to recycle products and help our world,” says Gregorchuk.

In addition to environmental benefits, she says previous studies in the U.S. have found that hot-mix asphalt combined with crumb rubber results in less rutting in roads and fewer potholes, and it lasts longer.

With some more research, Gregorchuk believes this could be a feasible option for municipalities across Alberta.

ASET CEO Barry Cavanaugh commended all the submissions they got for this year’s awards, saying that these students truly went above and beyond their course requirements, utilizing both technical knowledge and passion.

Although the group from Lethbridge College did not win, he says their project caught his eye.

“It’s really quite impressive. The fact that they even thought about it is quite something and then they went about a serious investigation into how to do it – quite remarkable.”

The award went to students from Red Deer College who sought to use ram pumps to generate clean electricity. The pumps would use water to power a turbine.