Info in English

Reclaimed asphalt (RA) in Norway

The use of Reclaimed Asphalt (RA) in Norway is monitored by the non profit association “The Info Center for Recycling of Asphalt” named KFA, Kontrollordningen For
Asfaltgjenvinning. KFA was established in 2001.

The primary objective of KFA was to avoid any possible environmental taxation on the production of or the use of asphalt materials. KFA conduct various activities to increase the collection and reuse of reclaimed asphalt pavement materials, to promote the use of recycled asphalt materials and to document the degree of recycling of RA at a national level. The initial goal was to reach a recycling ratio of 80 % of annual collected RA.

KFA is a voluntary association between the public road administrations, municipalities and communities as road owners and the asphalt producers. KFA is temporarily financed by collecting a green fee on asphaly sold to the largest public buyers. The green fee is currently 1 NOK + VAT per ton asphalt. The company Veiteknisk Institutt is given the responsibility for running and for overviewing the KFA agreement on behalf of KFA.

The owners of storage sites must seek advice and possibly permission by local National environmental authorities to establish new storage sites. KFA has no authority.

Maximum allowable storage time of general construction waste materials is normally three years. RA as untreated asphalt slabs is considered a waste material. However, treated RA materials, such as milled asphalt materials directly from the road and crushed slabs of asphalt (asphalt granulate), is not considered a waste material. In general there is not set any limit on storage time for such treated RA.

KFA is constantly updating a national register of RA storage sites. At the end of each year contact is made to each known storage site, the Public Road Administration, road owners of community roads that are known to have RA storage site, as well as asphalt producers and waste/recycling firms. Each site is asked to report tonnage of received and used/ exported RA at the end of each year. This way KFA is able to put together and publish an annual national report of the amount of RA collected, recycled and stored on a national and yearly basis. The results are published in an annual report from KFA. KFA is aware of about 250 RA storage sites throughout Norway.

The asphalt market in Norway has a huge potential for utilizing RAP at a higher level as input in production of new asphalt on plants and as being preheated prior to being added into the plants. KFA is putting effort in collecting and publishing guidelines and recommendations on the web-site related to collection, storage and various ways for reuse of RAP. In addition KFA offers various services such as:

• Establishing new storage site (primarily environmental aspects and as well as handling volume and equipments)
• Registration of materials that is delivered to a storage; with focus on keeping the RAP materials free of other waste products as well as weighing and reporting the amount of received materials
• Various use of RAP (in-place, at asphalt plants, etc) including techniques
• Visiting asphalt producers and road authorities in order to promote the usage of RAP
• Checking RAP-samples for possible tar-content (PAH16).