When Does Road Reclamation Make Sense?

In Gravel Roads, Unpaved Roads by Frank Elswick

For businesses that need cost-effective and long-lasting local infrastructure, road reclamation offers a non-invasive solution with minimal environmental impact. 

Communities and businesses that are looking to invest in their roads often face the same decision: paved or unpaved? While paved roads have their pluses, they’re frequently much more expensive than unpaved gravel or dirt roads. Both in terms of installation and maintenance, asphalt roads are more involved to prepare and build in the short term and costlier to maintain over the long run. 

Instead, municipalities and industrial facilities should consider how unpaved roads can serve their needs while sticking to the budget they have to work with. With road reclamation, in particular, decision-makers can opt to build strong unpaved roads primarily using the materials available onsite. By doing so, projects can save on time and resources — without disturbing the environmental profile of the local area. 

What You Need to Know About Road Reclamation

Traditional paved roads require heavy equipment and additional outside materials in order to prepare worksites for road construction. Hauling in outside materials and bringing in industrial machinery to build asphalt roads can be prohibitively expensive and environmentally invasive. What’s more, paved roads require routine maintenance, calling for significant long-term investment in resources and equipment. 

In contrast, road reclamation leverages soil materials present at worksites in order to construct and maintain strong unpaved roads. To do so, roads’ sub-bases are stabilized with a minimal amount of excavation and the application of a stabilization layer using advanced, environmentally friendly chemical products. While these products require several applications depending on the nature of the worksite and other variables, they can reduce the overall cost of construction by up to 80%. 

Which Businesses Should Consider Road Reclamation

Depending on their specific needs, road reclamation can be the right investment for businesses. For instance, teams that operate in protected environmental areas with strict construction regulations may not be able to build paved roads to accommodate their business. In such cases, road reclamation is often the best choice. 

For these businesses, road reclamation can offer the kind of pavement-like strength needed while actually improving load-bearing capacity over time as traffic compacts unpaved roads. Plus, the most advanced road reclamation methods on the market are environmentally friendly and ecologically non-invasive, allowing these businesses to continue operations without making a significant impact in protected areas.

Who Can Deliver Long-Lasting Road Reclamation Solutions

If you’re considering investing in road reclamation because of its affordability, ease of maintenance, and environmental friendliness, be sure that you work with a team of unpaved road specialists who can maximize each of those benefits. With a suite of road reclamation solutions from Midwest Industrial Supply, Inc., businesses can build unpaved roads that can meet their needs and accommodate their budget. 

In fact, the full line of road reclamation solutions from Midwest offer a cost-effective and sustainable alternative to even the strongest paved roads. With GreenPave™, Soil-Sement®, and Eco-Pave®, our unpaved roads deliver strength where businesses need it most, binding with the soil materials already present at worksites in order to cut down on installation and maintenance costs while improving operational longevity. 

Frank is the sales unit manager of Midwest's road construction and natural paving markets.