Resources, Conservation and Recycling 54 (2010) 250–255

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Resources, Conservation and Recycling

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resconrec

A life cycle based environmental impacts assessment of construction materials

used in road construction
Raja Chowdhury a,∗ , Defne Apul a , Tim Fry b
a
Dept. of Civil Engineering, University of Toledo, 2801, West Bancroft St., Toledo, OH 43606, United States
b
Dept. of Mechanical Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Toledo, 2801, West Bancroft St., Toledo, OH 43606, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Industrial byproducts such as coal fly ash, coal bottom ash, and recycled concrete pavement (RCP) are
Received 18 July 2008 being used in considerable amounts as a full or partial replacement of natural aggregates. Studies com-
Received in revised form 10 August 2009 paring road construction byproduct materials with natural aggregates are limited. In the present study,
Accepted 14 August 2009
a comparison of these byproducts with natural aggregates was carried out with respect to cost, envi-
ronmental pollutants generated, and energy consumption. Pollutant emission data were aggregated to
Keywords:
express results in terms of global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential and various toxicity
Recycled materials
potentials. For assessment of toxicity potentials, all the toxicities were represented with respect to 1,4
Life cycle assessment
Toxicity potentials
dichlorobenzene. Mixed results were found from the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and no single material
Road construction performed superiorly in all categories. Fly ash and bottom ash were found attractive in cost, GWP, and
Aggregates acidification potential categories. RCP had higher GWP and acidification potential compared to natural
Fly ash aggregates. In toxicity categories, in some cases fly ash and bottom ash had higher; and RCP, in all cases,
RCP had much lower toxicity compared to natural aggregates.
Bottom ash © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Model
BenReMod

1. Introduction
Extensive use of natural aggregates in construction projects
has been gradually depleting this resource near areas where
aggregates are in high demand. The need for resource conser-
vation and lengthened transportation distances has increased
the demand to introduce substitute materials for natural aggre-
gates. At the same time, industry, construction and other
similar activities produce large quantities of industrial byproducts
such as coal combustion byproducts, foundry sand, construc-
tion and demolition waste, and steel slags that cause a
heavy burden on landfills. These byproducts can and have
been beneficially reused mainly as road construction materials
(Ahmed, 1993).
Industrial byproducts can contain trace concentrations of var-
ious pollutants that may potentially leach and contaminate the
underlying soil and groundwater. Currently there are no universal
specifications for addressing the environmental impact of byprod-
uct reuse in road construction. Faced with this challenge, each state
has a different approach for decision making on byproduct reuse.
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: raja.chowdhury@utoledo.edu (R. Chowdhury).
The Recycled Materials Resource Center has developed and made
available online (RMRC, 2008) a framework for screening the indus-
trial byproducts for beneficial uses. The framework consists of lab
scale leaching tests followed by field scale long term monitoring of
groundwater, surface water and soil quality surrounding the area
where the byproduct is used. An industrial byproduct can be used
for a beneficial purpose if the byproduct passes these screening
tests.
Lab scale leaching tests have been a topic of research for many
years. Different types of leaching tests have been developed to
assess the extent of long term pollution from subsurface use of
byproducts for conditions where environmentally relevant param-
eters such as pH, redox potential, and liquid to solid ratios may
change (Kosson et al., 2002; prEN 14405, 2001; prEN 14429, 2001).
The leaching test protocols did not always simulate the proper envi-
ronmental conditions and thus underestimated or overestimated
the mobility of a pollutant from an industrial byproduct (Ghosh
et al., 2006). While much emphasis has been placed on leaching
test protocols and risks of contaminant leaching, little attention has
been paid to other kinds of impact, such as energy consumption and
emissions that do not directly originate from the road materials. To
evaluate the use of energy consumption and environmental impact
from a broader perspective, a life cycle analysis (LCA) approach can
be used.

0921-3449/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2009.08.007
 R. Chowdhury et al. / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 54 (2010) 250–255
An LCA is a method of accounting for the environmental impacts
associated with a product or a service. The method takes into
account various upstream processes and emissions generated dur-
ing the lifetime of a product. Therefore, the primary task in an LCA
study is the estimation of emission factors (emissions generated
from the production of unit mass of product) from various upstream
processes directly and indirectly linked to the manufacturing of the
products. The processes one would include to calculate emissions
depend on the system boundary of the project, which needs to be
determined upfront.
There are several published examples of the use of LCA for eval-
uation of different materials in road construction. Rajendran and
Gambatese (2007) and Zapata and Gambatese (2005) presented a
comparative analysis of energy consumption and solid waste gen-
eration associated with traditional reinforced concrete and asphalt
pavements. In Denmark, a model for LCA of road construction and
disposal of waste generated from municipal solid waste incinerator
was developed (Birgisdottir, 2005). In Finland, Mroueh et al. (2001)
used an LCA model for road construction to assess the environ-
mental impact from several alternative materials such as fly ash,
steel slag and crushed concrete. They found that the use of the
industrial byproducts as a substitute for natural aggregate could
reduce the environmental impact for some of the impact categories.
However, except for the Danish model, none of these studies have
included an extensive toxicity assessment approach. In the U.S.,
PALATE (2008), an extensive tool for pavement life cycle analysis
has been developed. PALATE does include a relatively more detailed
toxicity assessment approach compared to other studies. However,
learning and use of the model requires a significant time investment
and it is also not practical to easily compare two or more materials
using PALATE. In addition, PALATE is based on an economic input
output analysis through use of EIO-LCA model; this approach while
powerful and well accepted may yield different results compared
to a process based LCA approach (Junnila, 2007). The goal of this
research was to develop a complementary, easy to use, web based
tool for comparing materials used in road construction. We used
a process based LCA approach, and developed a web based model,
BenReMod (http://benremod.eng.utoledo.edu/BenReMod/). In this
paper, we report on BenReMod-LCA model results regarding the
environmental impacts associated with use of natural aggregates
in comparison to industrial byproducts such as coal fly ash, coal
bottom ash, and recycled concrete pavement (RCP). Coal fly ash can
also be used in cement manufacturing, however this study focused
on direct replacement of the natural aggregate with byproduct
materials and evaluation of other beneficial uses of the industrial
byproducts are not discussed in this paper.
2. Methods
2.1. Overview
The life cycle analysis approach was taken to compare environ-
mental impacts of natural aggregate, fly ash, and RCP when they
are used in road construction. (The focus of this research was on
impacts of diverting byproducts from their placement in landfills
and on resource conservation, thus the life cycle analysis focused on
direct comparison of natural aggregates with the industrial byprod-
ucts.) Construction activities such as excavation and compaction as
well as maintenance were not considered since we assumed that
environmental emissions and cost associated would be similar for
maintenance work. The toxicities generated from materials during
life time of a road were taken into account by various time horizons
of the toxicity categories. Olsson et al. (2006) excluded the landfill
metal leachate concentrations in their analysis with the assump-
tion that if a byproduct is placed in the landfill and metals leached
251
from it, the leachate would be treated and there would not be any
major emissions to the environment. We followed the same logic
in this paper and accounted for the concentrations leached from
the materials into the environment only when they are placed in
the road.
The thickness, width and length of the section were taken as
600 mm, 2.5 m and 1000 m respectively, resulting in a volume
of 1500 m3 . We assumed that industrial byproducts and natural
aggregates were transported from source to site by 32 ton trucks for
50 km and 100 km, respectively. Cost of transportation was taken
as $0.13/ton/km (Wilburn and Goonan, 1998).
2.2. System boundary
System boundary is one of the most important parameters that
affect the results of an LCA (Suh et al., 2004). System boundary of
a material in this study included the production and transporta-
tion of the material and associated electricity and oil consumption
(Fig. 1(a and b)). In production of the material (and refining the
oil) electricity is needed. In this work, only coal combusted electric
generation was taken into consideration. Approximately 49% of the
electricity in the US comes from coal plants (EIA, 2008a). Energy
information administration data (EIA, 2008b) show that coal is the
primary power source for electricity production in some states (e.g.
Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky). In addition, production of construction
materials does not follow the US energy profile. For example, for
cement industry 70% of the energy come from coal based power
(Huntzinger and Eatmon, 2009). Therefore, while the use of coal
as an electricity power source is a simplification, an analysis of the
effect of different energy sources was beyond the scope of this study
especially considering that the energy mix changes in time, from
region to region, and from sector to sector.
Most of the time, fly ash and bottom ash are readily used or
need very few processes to modify them for use in road con-
struction. Environmental loading data from these processes is
almost nonexistent. For these reasons, environmental loadings
of their production processes were not included in the present
study. However, their disposal cost at a landfill was consid-
ered.
Oil is necessary for transportation. The production of the fuel
from crude oil extraction via refining to distribution was taken into
account in this study. However, the manufacturing of production
plants was not included in the system boundary. As far as vehicles
are concerned, the production of the vehicles themselves have not
been taken into account, but we did take into account the operation
Fig. 1. A schematic representation of the system boundary in the present study. (a)
System boundary for a material production and (b) system boundary for the trans-
portation. (Note: dashed arrows indicate no transportation is required to proceed
from one process to the other).
252 R. Chowdhury et al. / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 54 (2010) 250–255

Table 1
Summary of processes and data sources included in system boundary for each mate-
rial. [Source: Stripple (2001)].

Material/impacts Processes included

Natural aggregate Natural aggregate production, transportation,

electricity consumption (Spath et al., 1999)
Fly ash Transportation, particulate matter generation
from fly ash sintering and drying (FIRE)
Bottom ash Transportation
RCP RCP production (various resources), oil
consumption, transportation

of the vehicle and principally the consumption of fuel, which is the

dominating component of the operation part. Fig. 2. . Processes for RCP production and machines available for each process.

2.3. Data collection 2.3.4. Fly ash and bottom ash

Life cycle inventory data was collected from the literature for
transportation of the materials, material production, associated
energy use, and leachate concentrations emitted from the mate-
rials once they are placed in the road (Tables 1 and 2). Some of the
compiled data are given in the supporting information.
Data from different processes needed to refine the raw fly ash
and bottom ash to a final product that can be used for various pur-
poses are not available and therefore, not included in the inventory
data. Factor Information RetriEval (FIRE), software developed by
USEPA (2008a) was used to estimate emission factors for particu-
late matters from fly ash which is included in the present inventory.

2.3.1. Transportation
Energy consumption and emission for the transportation were
collected from Stripple (2000, 2001). The web based model, BenRe-
Mod uses four kinds of transportation modes (i) 14 T truck, (ii) 32 T
truck, (iii) Ship and (iv) Train. A 32 T truck was used for the analysis
presented in this paper. Stripple has taken crude oil extraction and
subsequent refining in the system boundary; however, the break
down of the data into emissions from extraction, transportation
and refining were not mentioned. Hence, electricity consumption
data for refining could not be modified according to the US energy
consumption data.
2.3.2. Electricity
Electricity inventory data were taken from a US coal fired based
energy plant (Spath et al., 1999). The report includes emission from
three different kinds of boiler systems. We have taken the average
of three boiler system as emission factors for the present study.
Transportation distance (434 km in barge and 48 km in truck) for
hauling coal was taken as given by the authors (Spath et al., 1999).
But the emission factors for the transportation were taken from
Stripple (2001). Hence, emission factors calculated in the present
study is not the same as given by Spath et al. (1999).
2.3.3. Natural aggregate
Inventory data for natural aggregate was taken from Stripple
(2001) after modifying the energy emission data to assume most
of the electricity use in industry comes from coal power plants.
Inventory data of natural aggregate has two parts (i) emission from
crushing, and (ii) emission from energy industry due to use of
energy in crushing process. Data for (i) were taken from Stripple
(2001) and emission factors for energy industry were taken from
data we gathered from Spath et al. (1999).
2.3.5. RCP
In RCP production, three major steps are involved in it (i) loading
and unloading of crushed concrete pavement (ii) primary crush-
ing and (iii) secondary crushing. Based on our calculation, in RCP
production, almost 57% of the energy was consumed during pri-
mary crushing. A number of machines are available to accomplish
each step (Fig. 2). Each machine has a different loading rate, oil
consumption, and productivity; these data were collected from
manufacturing companies. Emissions from these machines were
calculated by Eq. (1). Emission factors for non-road vehicles were
taken from AP 42 (USEPA, 2008b). After emissions for each machine
were calculated, average values of emission for each process were
averaged again to estimate emission factors for RCP production.
Energy consumption from RCP production was calculated using Eq.
(2).
 HP × LF × EF × Tons
E= (1)
Prod
 Tons × Fuel economy × EV/Vol
Energy required = (2)
Prod
E = emission, HP = horse power of the machine (from manufacturer),
LF = loading factor of the machine, EF = emission factor (from AP 42),
Tons = tons of materials processed, Prod = productivity of a machine
(from manufacturer), EV = Energy value of fuel, Vol = volume of oil
used (from manufacturer)
2.3.6. Leaching of heavy metals
Once the material is constructed, constituents in road materials
may leach and contaminate the groundwater. Apul et al. (2007)
have developed a method for estimating the concentrations of
metals reaching the groundwater using a contaminant fate and
transport model. Yet this approach was beyond the scope of this
work and leachate data obtained directly from the literature were

Table 2
Leaching data for various heavy metals (mg/kg) used in the present study.

Material Heavy metal Reference

Pb Cd Cr Hg Cu As Co

Natural aggregate 0.07 0.04 0.1 0.033 0.16 0.08 0.2 Tossavainen and Forssberg (1999)
Fly ash 0.5 0.1 0.1 – 0.1 0.1 4 Theis and Wirth (1977)
Bottom ash 1.92 0.08 1.2 – 0.16 0.6 0 Baba and Kaya (2004)
RCP 0.02 0.002 0.02 0.0006 0.02 0.005 – Wahlstrom et al. (2000)
 R. Chowdhury et al. / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 54 (2010) 250–255 253

Table 3
Units for impact categories in the present LCIA and sources of data.

Category Reference unit Source of data

Energy consumption Loading (J × 10 )9

Spath et al. (1999) and Stripple (2001)
Acidification potential kg of SO2 CMLCA and Houghton et al. (2001)
Global warming potential kg of CO2
Human toxicity potential kg of 1,4 dichlorobenzene Huijbregts et al. (2000) and CMLCA
Aquatic ecotoxicity potential
Aquatic sediment ecotoxicity potential
Terrestrial ecotoxicity potential

used (Table 2) to estimate releases to the environment from the
road construction material once it is in place. Different protocols
have been used to estimate the leachable metals present in the
constituents. For example, leaching values obtained from natural
aggregate (Tossavainen and Forssberg, 1999) was used NT ENVIR
003 test (Swedish protocol for testing leaching of metals from solid
matrix). USEPAs’ TCLP procedure was used to estimate the leach-
able metals content from bottom ash (Baba and Kaya, 2004). Some
data were reported in mg L−1 unit and were converted to mg/kg
unit for the purpose of this work. We assumed that the concen-
tration of leaching metals would be the same from different test
protocols.
2.4. Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) framework
LCIA involves the translation of the environmental pollutants
identified during data collection to environmental impacts. LCIA
method is an area of ongoing research and different researchers
have formulated the impacts in different categories such as global
warming potential, acidification potential, and various other tox-
icity potentials (Birgisdottir, 2005; Geibig and Socolof, 2005). The
first step of LCIA is to classify the environmental loading into var-
ious categories (known as classifications). Characterization factors
are then used to quantify the magnitude of the contribution that
loading can have in producing the associated impact.
The impact categories included in the present project were: (i)
cost, (ii) energy consumption, (iii) acidification potential, (iv) global
warming potential (GWP), (v) human toxicity potential (HTP), (vi)
aquatic ecotoxicity potential (FAETP), (vii) aquatic sediment eco-
toxicity potential (FSETP), and (viii) terrestrial ecotoxicity potential
(TETP). Different characterization factors for toxicity assessment
methods are available in the literature (Huijbregts et al., 2000;
Hoffstetter, 1998). Characterization factors for various toxicity
potentials were collected from the work of Huijbregts et al. (2000)
and from the database of CMLCA (CMLCA, 2008). Characteriza-
tion factors for acidification potential and global warming potential
were taken from Houghton et al. (2001) and from the database of
CMLCA. All the characterization factors are expressed with respect
to a reference value. For example, CO2 is used as a unit for express-
ing global warming potential and 1,4 dichlorobenzene is used as a
unit for expressing various toxicity potentials (Table 3). The impact
potentials for various categories were calculated by multiplying the
characterization factor (Ci ) with pollutants loading (Pk ) and then
summing all the multiplied values in a single impact category (Eq.
(3))
calculation of characterization factors in various toxicity categories
one ionized form of each heavy metal was taken into account. For
example, for arsenic, only arsenic (V) is considered. Therefore, for
calculation of toxicity potential, it is assumed that all the heavy
metals are in one ionized form for which the characterization fac-
tors are available.
2.5. Coding of calculations in BenReMod
After collecting the data, the web based model was devel-
oped for calculation and pictorial representation of the various
impact categories. Input parameters for each simulation are thick-
ness, width, and length of the road section. The other input
parameters are transportation distances of various materials, and
the mode of transport. After providing the input parameters,
users obtain various impact categories such as cost, energy, and
various toxicity categories in tabular and in pictorial representa-
tion.
2.6. Effect of transportation
Transportation of materials increases energy consumption
and other environmental impacts. Hence, viability of a material
depends on the proximity of the materials from the road construc-
tion site. Hence, effects of transportation distance on the various
impact categories were also analyzed.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Cost of construction
In the present study, the cost of construction includes the
material cost and the transportation cost. For the hypothetical
embankment construction, cost of construction varies between
−$60,000 and +$50,000 (Fig. 3). For industrial byproducts, the
tipping fee for landfills was considered and the cost of the tip-
ping fee was subtracted from the total cost. For this reason, for
all the industrial byproducts, the cost of construction is nega-
tive.


n
Impact categoryi = Cik Pk (3)
k=1

Details of the methods for derivation of characterization factors

are available in Huijbregts’ work (2000). Characterization factors
are derived for three time periods: 20 years, 100 years, 500 years
or for infinite time. For acidification potential, the characterization
factor was derived both by considering and ignoring the fate of the
pollutants (photooxidation and other abiotic processes in air). For Fig. 3. Cost of embankment construction using different materials.
254 R. Chowdhury et al. / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 54 (2010) 250–255
Table 4
Conventional air pollutants generated from material production (in kg).
Material SO2 CO
Natural aggregate 29 (88) 5 (33)
Fly ash 0 (0) 0 (0)
Bottom ash 0 (0) 0 (0)
RCP 50 (96) 99 (93)
3.2. Pollutants generated
Conventional air pollutants generated from material produc-
tion are shown in Table 4. Data shown in parenthesis is the %
of total emissions (material production and transportation) com-
ing from material production. Emissions from material production
were higher for RCP than the natural aggregates. Emission of CO,
CO2 and NOx from transportation were relatively high (67, 46, and
54% of total emissions) for natural aggregates and not significant
for RCP.
3.3. Impact categories
Results obtained from LCIA for each material are shown in
Figs. 4 and 5(a and b). Impact values (energy, GWP and AP) obtained
for natural aggregates were used as the reference values. To calcu-
late the normalized impact values, impact values obtained for other
materials were divided by the corresponding impact value obtained
for natural aggregates. The normalized and absolute values of the
impact generated by natural aggregates are shown as the solid line
and the numbers above the solid line, respectively.
Energy consumption, GWP and acidification potential generated
from the use of fly ash and bottom ash are almost one-third of the
value of the natural aggregates. However, the impact generated
from RCP is higher than the natural aggregate. In the acidification
category, the impact was almost three times higher for RCP com-
pared to natural aggregate. Acidification is a result of emission of
nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide gases. In RCP production, non-
road vehicles such as crusher and loader emit a high amount of
this acid producing gases/ton of produced RCP (data from individ-
ual vehicles are not shown here) resulting in a higher acidification
potential for RCP compared to natural aggregates.
In toxicity potential (HTP, FAETP, etc.) categories, mixed results
were observed. In HTP categories, all the materials had very low
toxicity compared to natural aggregates. However, in infinite time
period, bottom ash had higher toxicity compared to natural aggre-
gate. In TETP categories, fly ash and bottom ash had higher impacts
compared to natural aggregate.
For natural aggregates, emission of heavy metals takes place in
two compartments (a) air and (b) soil. For all the industrial byprod-
ucts, as there is no processing step, emission takes place as leaching
Fig. 4. Normalized values of energy consumption, GWP and acidification potential
for coal fly ash (FA), coal bottom ash (BA), and RCP. (Values over the line are for
natural aggregate and approximated to their nearest hundred).
NOx PM10 CO2
49 (44) 314 (100) 8487 (54)
0 (0) 230341 (100) 0 (100)
0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0)
457 (91) 33 (100) 20315 (80)
of contaminants. Hence, for industrial byproducts, emission takes
place in soil compartment. At 20 years and 100 years time peri-
ods, air emission has higher impact to HTP. At infinite time horizon,
however, emission in soil compartment was also important for HTP.
That is why at infinite time horizon, HTP generated due to indus-
trial byproducts is higher than the shorter time span (20 years and
100 years).
For other type of toxicities, such as FAETP, FSETP, and TETP, emis-
sions in soil compartment had more impact because leaching of
heavy metals can directly reach the water bodies, and thus affect
the aquatic organisms (FAETP). Some of the heavy metals have high
adsorption coefficient in soil particles and so they adhere to solid
surfaces and affect the organisms that live in sediments resulting
in higher FSETP.
The time for simulation was also found to be important for esti-
mating impacts. In the present study, all the emissions (except
some heavy metals from natural aggregate) take place in the soil
medium. Therefore, depending on the adsorption coefficient of
heavy metals, some metals strongly adsorb to the solid surfaces,
whereas other metals easily dissolve in water. Therefore, those
metals that have strong affinity on solid surfaces take a longer time
to reach the human body through water or by accumulating in the
food chain. For these reasons, when metals are released into the
air, they affect humans immediately, and so their effects become
apparent within a short time frame (20 years for the present study).
But when they are released to the soil compartment, depending on
their adsorption coefficients, they take a longer time to reach the
Fig. 5. Normalized values of toxicity potentials generated from construction using
different materials. (Values over the line are for natural aggregate and approximated
to their nearest hundred).
 R. Chowdhury et al. / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 54 (2010) 250–255
human body and so their effects become apparent after a longer
time frame (100 years or infinite time).
In general, for the present ratio of transportation distance (2:1,
natural aggregate: industrial byproducts) industrial byproducts
such as fly ash and bottom ash have advantage over natural aggre-
gate if one considers energy, GWP and AP (Fig. 4). On the other
hand, natural aggregate based road has smaller impacts in energy,
GWP and AP categories compared to RCP. However, the scenario
may change if the ratio of transportation distance changed. It was
observed that if the ratio of transportation distance was more than
1:3 (natural aggregate:fly ash, bottom ash), fly ash and bottom
ash had higher impacts in energy, GWP, AP categories (supporting
information Tables A7–A9). RCP, in general was found to have the
highest impact in GWP and acidification categories in the original
simulations, however we observed that if the transportation dis-
tance of natural aggregate: RCP is more than 4:1, natural aggregates
may result in higher impacts in GWP, energy and all the toxicolog-
ical categories.
4. Conclusions and limitations
This paper presents a process based calculation of various
impact categories for different materials. In general, mixed results
were found from the LCA and no single material performed superi-
orly in all categories. Fly ash and bottom ash were found attractive
in cost, GWP, and acidification potential categories. However, if the
transportation distance ratio of fly ash and bottom ash to natu-
ral aggregate is more that 1:3, fly ash and bottom ash have higher
impacts on energy, GWP and AP categories. RCP has higher GWP
and acidification potential compared to natural aggregates. How-
ever, if the transportation distance ratio of RCP:natural aggregate
was more that 1:4, RCP was found attractive in energy, GWP and
all the toxicity categories.
Results presented in this paper should be interpreted in appro-
priate context and within their limitations. Data uncertainty related
to leachate concentration emissions and characterization factors
can lead to large errors in impact calculations (Chowdhury and
Apul, 2007). Yet, quantitative and comparative life cycle assess-
ment results on road construction materials are essential first
steps towards making informed decisions towards more sustain-
able practices in road construction.
Acknowledgement
This project was funded in part by the U.S. Environmental Pro-
tection Agency (U.S. EPA), Region 5 under assistance agreement
66.808. The contents of this manuscript do not necessarily reflect
the views or policies of the U.S. EPA.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2009.08.007.
References
Ahmed I. Use of waste materials in highway construction. Park Ridge, NJ: Noyes Data
Corporation; 1993.
Apul DS, Gardner KH, Eighmy TT. Modeling hydrology and reactive transport in
roads: the effect of cracks, the edge, and contaminant properties. Waste Manage
2007;27:1465–75.
Baba A, Kaya A. Leaching characteristics of solid wastes from thermal power plants
of western Turkey and comparison of toxicity methodologies. J Environ Manage
2004;73:199–207.
255
Birgisdottir H. Life cycle assessment model for road construction and use of residues
from waste incineration. PhD thesis, Denmark: Institute of Environment and
Resources, Technical University of Denmark; 2005.
Chowdhury R, Apul DS. A comparative environmental analysis of embankments con-
structed from conventional materials and industrial byproducts. In: 2007 TRB
annual conference proceedings; 2007.
Chain Management by Life Cycle Assessment (CMLCA), 2008. R. Heijungs,
http://www.leidenuniv.nl/cml/ssp/software/cmlca/index.html (accessed July,
14, 2008).
EIA, 2008a. Energy Information Administration, Official Energy Statistics from the
U.S. Government, www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/overview.html (last accessed July
13, 2008).
EIA 2008b. State energy consumption estimates 1960–2006, Energy Infor-
mation Administration, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/states/sep use/
notes/use print2006.pdf (last accessed August 2, 2009).
Geibig JR, Socolof ML. Solders in electronics: A life-cycle assessment, Publication
EPA 744-R-05 001, EPA, US Environmental Protection Agency; 2005.
Ghosh A, Mukhiibi M, Saez AE, Ela W. Leaching of arsenic from granular fer-
ric hydroxide residuals under mature landfill conditions. Environ Sci Technol
2006;40:6070–5.
Hoffstetter P. Perspective in life cycle impact assessment, a structured approach
to combine models of the technosphere, ecosphere and valuesphere. Boston:
Kluwer Academic Publishers; 1998.
Houghton JT, Ding Y, Griggs DJ, Noguer M, van der Linden PJ, Xiaosu D, editors. IPCC
third assessment report: climate change 2001: the scientific basis. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press; 2001.
Huijbregts MAJ, Thissen U, Guinee JB, Jager T, Kalf D, van de Meent D, et al. Priority
assessment of toxic substances in life cycle assessment. Part I. Calculation of tox-
icity potentials for 181 substances with the nested multi-media fate, exposure
and effects model USES–LCA. Cheomsphere 2000;41:541–73.
Huntzinger DN, Eatmon TD. A life-cycle assessment of portland cement manufac-
turing: comparing the traditional process with alternative technologies. J Clean
Prod 2009;17:668–75.
Junnila SI. Empirical comparison of process and economic input output life cycle
assessment in service industries. Environ Sci Technol 2007;40(22):7070–6.
Kosson DS, Van der Sloot HA, Sanchez F, Garrabrants AC. An integrated framework
for evaluating leaching in waste management and utilization of secondary mate-
rials. Environ Eng Sci 2002;19(3):159–204.
Mroueh U, Eskola P, Laine - Yjiloki J. Life-cycle impacts of the use of industrial by-
products in road and earth construction. Waste Manage 2001;21:271–7.
Olsson S, Kärrman E, Gustafsson JP. Environmental systems analysis of the use of
bottom ash from incineration of municipal waste for road construction. J Resour
Conserv Recycl 2006;48(1):26–40.
PALATE, 2008. Consortium on green design and manufacturing, University of Cal-
ifornia, Berkeley, Pavement life-cycle assessment tool for environmental and
economic effect (PALATE), http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/∼horvath/palate.html
(last accessed June, 24, 2008).
prEN 14405, 2001. Characterisation of waste: leaching behavior test—up-flow per-
colation test, CEN/TC 292 WG6.
prEN 14429, 2001. Characterization of waste: leaching behavior test—pH depen-
dence test with initial acid/base addition, CEN/TC 292 WG6.
Rajendran S, Gambatese JA. Solid waste generation in asphalt and reinforced con-
crete roadway life cycles. J Infrastruct Syst 2007;13(2):88–96.
RMRC, 2008. Framework for evaluating recycled materials in the highway envi-
ronment, http://www.rmrc.unh.edu/Resources/CD/Framework/Start/start.htm
(last accessed July 14, 2008).
Spath PL, Mann MK, Kerr DR. Life cycle assessment of coal-fired power production.
Report no. NREL/TP-570-25119. National Renewable Energy Laboratory; 1999.
Stripple H. Life cycle inventory of asphalt pavements IVL Swedish Environmental
Research Institute Ltd; 2000.
Stripple H. Life cycle assessment of road—a pilot study for inventory analysis.
Report for the Swedish national road administration IVL Swedish Environmental
Research Institute Ltd; 2001.
Suh S, Lenzen M, Treloar GJ, Hondo H, Horvath A, Huppes G, et al. Critical review:
system boundary selection in life cycle inventories using hybrid approaches.
Environ Sci Technol 2004;38(3):657–64.
Theis TM, Wirth JL. Sorptive behavior or trace metals on fly ash in aqueous systems.
Environ Sci Technol 1977;11(12):1096–100.
Tossavainen M, Forssberg E. The potential leachability from natural road construc-
tion materials. Sci Total Environ 1999;239:31–47.
USEPA, 2008a. Factor Information REtrieval (FIRE) Software, http://www.
epa.gov/ttn/chief/software/fire/index.html (last accessed July 13, 2008).
USEPA, 2008b. Emission Factors and AP 42, Chapter 3, http://www.
epa.gov/ttn/chief/ap42/ch03/final/c03s03.pdf (last accessed July 13, 2008).
Wahlstrom M, Laine-Ylijoki J, Maattanen A, Luotojarvi T, Kivekas L. Environmental
quality assurance system for use of crushed mineral demolition wastes in road
construction. Waste Manage 2000;20:225–32.
Wilburn DR, Goonan TG. Aggregates from natural and recycled sources. U.S. Geolog-
ical Survey Circular 1176; 1998.
Zapata P, Gambatese JA. Energy consumption of asphalt and reinforced concrete
pavement materials and construction. J Infrastruct Syst 2005;11(1):9–20.