Owens Corning continues to advance toward its aspiration to create a circular shingle economy and divert waste from landfills. The company announced today that it has made progress on two key shingle recycling workstreams important for reaching its goal of recycling two million tons of shingles per year in the U.S. by 2030. Owens Corning and its partners have successfully deconstructed asphalt shingles into their component parts.
Recycling Used Shingles into New Shingles
In late 2022, Owens Corning and its partners launched an asphalt shingle recycling pilot developed to deconstruct residential and industrial waste shingles and extract their component materials. In less than a year of operation, the facility has successfully achieved shingle deconstruction and extracted asphalt, granules, and filler. The process is designed to reclaim the entire shingle to avoid any components of the product going to waste.
The materials extracted through this process have shown positive initial results, in line with the company’s expectations. Owens Corning and its partners continue modifying and enhancing the pilot process to optimize the resulting components for future applications.
“The progress being made at the pilot is a very promising step toward the future of shingle recycling,” said Gunner Smith, Owens Corning Roofing President. “What started at lab scale as shingle deconstruction with benchtop materials and testing has now been proven at pilot scale. The next step is plant trials where we will utilize the extracted materials in the development of new prototype shingles.”
In addition to developing various prototypes with recycled components for rigorous testing, the company and its partners will continue to scale up the pilot facility for increased material output and evaluation.
Recycling Used Shingles into Asphalt Pavement
Owens Corning remains committed to accelerating the use of recycled shingles in asphalt paving applications. To support this effort, the company has partnered with the National Center for Asphalt Technology (NCAT) to conduct research studies on the usage of recycled shingles in pavement.
The work with NCAT is evaluating the performance of asphalt mixtures made with a balanced mix design using recycled asphalt shingles (RAS). It also measures the environmental impact of RAS in paving applications and will generate full lifecycle assessment data on recycled asphalt shingles into pavement for the first time. This information can then be published in industry-wide guidelines to educate asphalt contractors across the U.S.
