Bay Area cities turn used tires into fresh pavement

Seven Bay Area municipalities are among 35 statewide to receive grants recently from the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery for road repair projects involving recycled tires, department officials said.

The department, also known as CalRecycle, awarded $6.2 million in all as part of its Rubberized Pavement and Tire-Derived Aggregate grant program that is an effort to divert waste tires from landfills and prevent illegal dumping.

The seven Bay Area municipalities — Concord, Clayton, Dublin, Moraga, Orinda, Pleasant Hill, and Vacaville — received nearly $1.5 million of that total.

The city of Concord and city of Clayton received a grant of $449,400 for a chip seal project that involves applying rubberized asphalt binder to existing asphalt followed by a layer of aggregate chips, CalRecycle officials said.

Dublin received $160,000 for a rubberized asphalt concrete (RAC) project in which ground tire rubber is blended with asphalt binder and then mixed with conventional aggregate materials.

Chip seal projects are typically used for low-traffic areas while the RAC types are for ones with higher amounts of cars, according to the department.

The town of Moraga got $167,030, Orinda received $350,000, and Vacaville got $117,068, all for RAC projects, while Pleasant Hill got $256,374 for a chip seal project.

CalRecycle director Scott Smithline said in a statement:

“When used for road resurfacing and other civil engineering purposes, recycled waste tire pavement and aggregate have proven to be more durable and cost-effective than traditional materials. … These projects also help California safely manage the roughly 45 million waste tires our state generates each year.”