The UK Highways Agency, which looks after the nation's network of motorways, started work at the end of May/03 on the first UK motorway project to use "glasphalt" - asphalt containing up to 30% crushed glass. Developed as a way of using up large quantities of recycled glass from bottle banks, glasphalt will replace conventional aggregate in the layer below the road surface on a 4 km section of the M6 motorway between junctions 18 and 19 in Cheshire. The amount of glass used in the £6M scheme is equivalent to 14M empty bottles, all taken from bottle banks around the region. The glass is crushed, extraneous material such as corks, caps and paper labels removed, before being mixed with conventional aggregate and bitumen. Although the material has been used in minor road schemes before, this is the first major road surfacing project to use it.
