Introduction. There has been a world-wide tendency, a global trend to reduce energy demand using a wide variety of methods. With this, on the one hand, the goal is to conserve the limited available and increasingly expensive energy carriers, and on the other hand, it is strived to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases and thereby fight against climate change.
Problem statement. In the field of road construction, the most widespread manifestation of this sustainability endeavour is the goal of replacing high-energy, hot asphalt mixtures (HMA) with variants of suitable quality. It is a common experience that in this field, the so-called warm asphalt mixtures (WMA) can be the most effective solution.
Purpose. The purpose of this article is to examine the environmental effects of the WMA. The authors of the article also deal with whether the type of substitute asphalt mixture does not represent a (long-term) performance reduction in the asphalt layers.
Materials and methods. Environmental safety of asphalt mixing plants is a growing concern nowadays due to the high temperature of asphalt mixture production requiring a lot of energy, and resulting in much air pollutants released into the air. The comparison between hot mix asphalt (HMA) and warm mix asphalt (WMA) was performed using BEES (Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability) 4.0 model; just now the environmental features of the two asphalt mixture types was concentrated on. (The model has also an economic element).
Results. It was shown that the application of WMA – in addition to the obvious economic advantages – reduces air pollution by 25.6 %, and fossil fuel consumption by 19.9 %, as well as it decreases the environment impacts by 11.4 % during its whole life time related to those of HMA.
