Laying Down the Pavement

Is Your Asphalt Parking Lot Good For The Environment?

16 July 2021 by Clifton Sullivan

If you run a business in any of America's car-centric cities or suburbs, then you know that parking lots are necessary. Many of your customers likely arrive at your establishment by car, and a lack of parking can mean lost business and revenue. Unfortunately, this often means frequent maintenance and repaving to keep your lot functional and attractive.

You might wonder if your parking lot has an overall negative effect on its local environment. Fortunately, the answer is a resounding "no!" Asphalt is a surprisingly sustainable and environmentally-friendly technology. This article will outline three ways that your asphalt parking lot can serve a positive role in the environment around your business.

1. Asphalt is Inert

Asphalt is not a workable material under normal environmental conditions. In other words, you cannot shape or spread asphalt at typical outdoor temperatures. Cold weather can even make applying asphalt challenging, and it's generally critical to spread hot asphalt before it loses much of its heat. Once it reaches something approaching ambient temperature, asphalt becomes far more inert.

What does this mean for the environment? Elements of your asphalt will not spread or leach once cool. Water that runs across a completed asphalt surface is clean and has little to no risk of spreading any harmful contaminants into the environment (at least not from the asphalt surface itself).

2. Asphalt Can Solve Drainage Issues

Pavement can have a surprisingly negative effect on the drainage in an area. Since many paved surfaces are impermeable, water may not be able to flow along its natural course. This effect can drastically alter a region's drainage characteristics, leading to flooding and overwhelmed runoff systems. Houston has notoriously suffered from this problem.

Permeable asphalt is a potential solution to these problems. When you pave your parking lot with a porous asphalt material, water can naturally flow through the pavement to the ground below. This approach means that you can enjoy all the benefits of asphalt without redirecting water in ways that may harm the environment.

3. Asphalt is Sustainable

You may be surprised to learn that asphalt is a recyclable material. When you mill your lot for resurfacing, your contractor will haul the old material away for recycling. Likewise, the material brought in to repave your lot was likely already recycled from another location! Some advanced techniques even use equipment that can recycle asphalt in-situ to minimize its environmental impact further.

Your business can't operate without a well-paved parking lot, and asphalt pavement is an excellent option for providing your customers with parking space in a way that's also friendly to the environment.

For more information, contact an asphalt paving company.  

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