Increasing the Use of Reclaimed Asphalt in Italy towards a Circular Economy: A Top-Down Approach

This contribution concerns recommendations which could be made to Italian regulatory bodies to improve their use of reclaimed asphalt (RA) in the road engineering sector. It is essential for the use of RA to be established as a standard practice since it has been proven that it can serve as an end-of-waste product that complies with the principles of a circular economy within both an open- and a closed-loop approach [1,2]. Several aspects will be covered, starting with an analysis of European nations whose economies can be classed as “more circular” compared to Italy’s. This refers to nations which have a high usage of RA. Furthermore, nations which have clear regulatory guidelines on the use of RA in road construction or, alternatively, nations which have very lax statutory requirements on pavement design allowing best practice to reign could be considered as more circular if these regulations or permissiveness result in a greater uptake in the use of RA in road construction.