The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said it has developed technology to manufacture an environmental pavement material using scrapped tires, which could provide better skid resistance and better traction than conventional asphalt, with the material to be widely adopted in Taipei.
The EPA said it produces “rubber-asphalt” concrete by blending ground recycled tires with paving grade asphalt cement and other aggregate materials.
A section of Expressway No. 61 in Taoyuan’s Dayuan District (大園), where heavy-duty vehicles commonly use, was paved with the material on a trial basis in June, the EPA said, adding that the road showed higher resistance to skidding, better road evenness and better drainage ability.
The rubber-asphalt-based surfaces generate less vibration, lower noise and lower carbon dioxide emission than roads made with conventional asphalt, Resource Recycling Fund Management Committee director Hsu Yung-hsing (許永興) said.
While the manufacturing cost of the rubber asphalt concrete is higher than for conventional materials, it is more durable and cost-effective in the long term, as it resists cracking and could thereby reduce maintenance costs, while it can be used at a reduced thickness to significantly reduce building costs, Hsu said.
The concrete drains rainwater faster than conventional asphalt, helping to prevent water accumulation while increasing driving safety, he said.
The nation generates up to 170,000 tonnes of waste tires and recycles about 110,000 tonnes every year, Hsu said, adding that more than 70 percent of recycled tires are supplied to plants as auxiliary fuel, which is not in accordance with environmental demands.
Twenty percent of recycled tires are processed to use in tiles, mattress and collision impact absorbers, he added.
The EPA developed the rubber-asphalt concrete to deal with surplus tires and boost the recycling rate, the EPA said, adding that reusable rubber accounts for about 8 percent of a waste tire, while it takes about 40 tires to make paving material for 1km of road.
The EPA is working with the Taipei City Government to set up an environmental pavement pilot program by having road constructions in the city use rubber-asphalt concrete to make “tires run on tires,” Hsu said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift