"VAN" (International Desk) :: French company Vinci has built the world’s first stretch of motorway made entirely from recycled road materials. The “fully recycled road” is a kilometre long and is part of the A10 motorway between Pons and Saint Aubin in southwest France. It was built by two subsidiaries of Vinci Construction, Eurovia and Vinci Autoroutes. “The old materials are fully reprocessed to make the new roads at a mobile factory [edit: a plant movable to any site]. The old supplies are then made into the new road,” Eurovia Communications Director, Maxence Naouri, told to reporters. Vinci said that most of resources used were then ground down from previously built roads and that extracts from quarries were not used at any stage. This therefore lowered the company’s use of natural resources, its carbon footprint and “reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 50%”. Naouri explained, “The trucks did not need to drive to and from the quarries, greatly reducing our CO2 output.” The construction of the mobile plant was central to the project’s success as it had previously been impossible to produce asphalt mixes with 100% recycled content outside of regular plants. As a result, the 3,000 tonnes of material used for the kilometre of road were created on site.
On Mon, Sep 29, 2025