Opening letter of RILEM TC 325-APS: Investigating the sustainability of alternative paving materials

Davide Lo Presti; Emmanuel  Chailleux; Rita  Kleizienė; Ana  Jiménez del Barco Carrión; João  Oliveira dos Santos; Pamela Haverkamp; Kamilla  Vasconcelos Savasini; Katerina Varveri; David  Hernando; Anand  Sreeram; Filippo  Giustozzi; Cesare  Sangiorgi

doi:10.21809/rilemtechlett.2026.223

Authors

Davide Lo Presti University of Palermo, Italy
Emmanuel Chailleux Material and Infrastructure department, University Gustave Eiffel, France
Rita Kleizienė Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Lithuania
Ana Jiménez del Barco Carrión University of Granada, Spain
João Oliveira dos Santos University of Twente, Netherlands
Pamela Haverkamp University of Aachen, Germany
Kamilla Vasconcelos Savasini University of São Paulo, Brazil
Katerina Varveri Technical University of Delft, Netherlands
David Hernando University of Antwerp, Belgium
Anand Sreeram University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
Filippo Giustozzi Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Australia
Cesare Sangiorgi University of Bologna, Italy

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21809/rilemtechlett.2026.223

Keywords:

Pavement, Alternative materials, Alternative paving materials, Recyclability potential, Life cycle sustainability assessment, Life cycle analysis, Leaching, Toxicoology, Novel pollutants

Abstract

Material scientists and road pavement technologists recognize the potential for recycling and re-engineering end-of-life products to support the circular economy paradigm. The previous TC 279-WMR committee successfully investigated the utilization of waste and secondary materials in bituminous mixtures, generating significant interest and recommendations for their implementation in road construction. Building upon this foundation two RILEM committees have been established with the objective of developing a long-term strategy to minimize the use of conventional materials through the integration of alternative materials (AMs) engineered and re-used and/or recycled by incorporating them in bituminous mixtures, hence serving as Alternative Paving Materials (APMS) for surface layers. The present paper describes the vision of one of these committees, the technical committee APMSustainability (TC 325-APS), which will focus its efforts on assessing the sustainability of incorporating AMs within conventional bituminous paving materials with an approach linked to the following three technical groups (TGs): TG1 will look at developing Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment protocols for APMs to investigating their environmental, economic, and social impacts; TG2 will examine the Recyclability Potential of APMs; while TG3 will explore novel methods to identify and evaluate Pollutants Risk Potential associated with APMs. This comprehensive initiative aims to investigate the sustainability of adopting AMs in road construction, focusing the attention on the following selected APMs: recycled tire rubber, recycled plastics, and bio-based binders. The aims of the RILEM TC 325-APS aligns with Sustainable Development Goals 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17 and with the principles of the circular economy and resilience. TC 325-APS is a multidisciplinary team with members from all over the globe, cooperating to provide practical recommendations and develop a long-term vision for the future of road construction materials.

Author Biography

Davide Lo Presti, University of Palermo, Italy

Dr. Lo Presti is Associate Professor at the “Engineering Department” of University of Palermo, where he leads a research group dealing smart solutions for sustainable infrastructure (SMARTIlab - http://smartilab.unipa.it).

He’s background is civil engineering with a focus on transport infrastructure. His research is both applied and fundamental and focuses on developing solutions for engineering sustainability to preserve existing transport infrastructures as well as envisioning the future ones. This is done in constant collaboration with international multi-disciplinary researchers, from both academia and private sector, and with a two-fold approach: implementing new technologies and circular economy into material science, product development and infrastructure management, while tailoring life cycle analyses techniques for assessing the actual sustainability of the proposed solutions.

Since 2010 Dr. Lo Presti has authored and co-authored +100 indexed publications in the field (+2000 citations e h-index=24, source: Scopus, September 2023), He has been actively leading activities within RILEM (International Union of Testing and Research Laboratories for Materials and Structures), within editorial boards of at least 5 international journals: amongst these Road Material and Pavement Design (RMPD), and Rilem Technical Letters (RTL); He held the “Rita Levi Montalcini fellowship” funded by the Italian Ministry for University and Research, awarded each year to 21 researchers, working abroad and in any field of science, and offering a tenured-track in any university in Italy. In 2019, Dr. Lo Presti was accepted at University of Palermo after 10 years working at the University of Nottingham alongside Prof. Gordon Airey and Prof. Andrew Collop and with research stays at TU Delft (2012 with Prof. Scarpas), University of Washington (2014 with Prof. Steve Muench) and University of California Davis (2019 with Prof. John Harvey). He has extensive experience in coordinating international research projects: amongst these Dr. Lo Presti has conceived and coordinated two 4M€ international Doctoral Networks: between 2013 and 2017 the “Sustainable Pavement and Railways Initial Training Network” (FP7 SUP&R ITN – http://superitn.eu) and between 2017 and 2022 the “Sustainable Multifunctional Automated Resilient Transport Infrastructure European Training Network” (H2020 SMARTI ETN – http://smartietn.eu).