New quarries are becoming less and less, and environmental approvals are increasingly difficult to obtain. As a result, contractors are being forced to look at rehabilitating existing infrastructure while reusing as much of the material already in place as possible.
Waylon Kukard, Sales Manager at Wirtgen SA.
already in place as possible.” Compounding this issue is the reality that many of South Africa’s roads were built decades ago using high-quality aggregates that are now difficult and costly to source. “We’ve been building roads for a long time, and a lot of the good material has already been used,” Kukard says. “Those roads are now 30 years old, but they lasted because of the quality of the aggregates and asphalt used at the time. That material is still there - it just needs to be reused intelligently.” Budgetary constraints add another layer of complexity. While countries once invested heavily in new road infrastructure, the focus has shifted towards maintenance and rehabilitation. “These large road networks now need to be maintained with limited budgets, while raw materials are becoming more expensive,” Kukard notes. “That’s why alternative rehabilitation methods are no longer optional - they’re essential.” Why cold recycling matters Cold recycling has been part of South Africa’s road construction landscape for more than two decades, but its relevance has increased significantly in recent years. The technology enables contractors to rehabilitate roads using materials already present in the existing structures. “Cold recycling allows you to reuse material that’s already on the road,” says Kukard. “Those materials were originally manufactured to very tight specifications - high-quality crushed aggregates and asphalt - and instead of removing them and dumping them on stockpiles, they can be reprocessed and reused in situ .” In practice, the process involves breaking up the existing road layers, adding stabilising agents such as cement, lime, water, or bitumen emulsion, and then remixing and relaying the material to form a new base course. “In essence, you granulate the existing material, mix in rejuvenators, and place it
QUICK TAKE
Cold recycling has been part of South Africa’s road construction landscape for more than two decades, but its relevance has increased significantly in recent years.
While countries once invested heavily in new road infrastructure, the focus has now shifted towards maintenance and rehabilitation.
Roads rehabilitated using the W380 CR train can be reopened to traffic almost immediately when bitumen- stabilised material is used.
What sets the W380 CR apart is its multifunctional capability. The machine can operate both as a conventional milling machine and as a cold recycler, depending on its direction of travel.
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CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NEWS FEBRUARY 2026
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