Roads are made of asphalt, an environmentally polluting petroleum product. Researchers have been looking for a low-cost, sustainable replacement. Now they have found that pig manure is rich in oils very similar to petroleum, at a grade too low to make gasoline but suited for asphalt. The group developed a process that turns the waste into a black crude—the sticky binder that can be used to make asphalt. The cost to process the manure oil is $0.56 a gallon, which is much cheaper and greener than current petroleum binders.
Sustainable road building: Pig manure can replace asphalt
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