Shingle Lane Highway

Two Missouri companies have been working to develop an asphalt road mix recipe that includes tear-off roofing shingles, according to a report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Peerless Landfill Inc., Valley Park, Mo., and Pace Construction Co., Overland, Mo., have built a private truck road at a Eureka, Mo., quarry to test the mix, according to the paper.

Because of the high volume of contaminants like wood, asbestos and nails included in tear-off shingles, the Missouri Department of Transportation is leery of relaxing its standards to include the material in asphalt road mixes, according to the Post-Dispatch.

Most state-approved road mixes that include recycled shingles use clean scrap shingles, according to the paper.

But Roger Brown, vice president of Pace, tells the paper that the companies have developed a mix that contains some contaminants without sacrificing road quality.

The companies and MoDOT are studying the half-mile Eureka road, checking for abnormal weathering and pavement cracking, according to the report.

The state’s current standards allow practically no contaminants, Joe Schroer, field-materials engineer for MoDOT tells the paper. “Within the next several weeks, we should be able to decide what direction we want to take this,” he says. “From our standpoint, we would still like to see those foreign materials limited.”