Workers Apply Asphalt to Road

A road crew repairs the city street in Seattle, Washington.

The largest use of asphalt is for making asphalt concrete for road surfaces and accounts for approximately 80% of the asphalt consumed in the United States. Due to its highly viscous nature, asphalt is commonly heated for road construction to make it soft and easy to work. Special heated tanker trucks are employed in road building to apply hot asphalt to the road bed.

Asphalt road surface is the most widely recycled material in the US, both by gross tonnage and by percentage. According to a report issued by the Federal Highway Administration and the United States Environmental Protection Agency, 80% of the asphalt from road surfaces' that is removed each year during widening and resurfacing projects is reused as part of new roads, roadbeds, shoulders and embankments.