Α Case Study of Life Cycle Eco-Assessment of Recycled Asphalt Materials in Iraq Using OpenLCA and SimaPro
Received: 29 July 2025 | Revised: 23 August 2025 and 7 September 2025 | Accepted: 9 September 2025 | Online: 8 December 2025
Corresponding author: Abbas F. Jasim
Abstract
This study examines the environmental performance of asphalt pavement mixtures that incorporate recycled materials in Iraq, using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods. Three pavement scenarios were evaluated: a baseline mix with 0% recycled content (S1), and two alternatives with 30% Recycled Asphalt Material (RAP) (S2) and 30% RAP plus 10% Crumb Rubber (CR) (S3) recycled content. The analysis used two well-known LCA tools, OpenLCA and SimaPro, to evaluate key impact categories: Global Warming Potential (GWP), Fossil Resource Scarcity, Human Toxicity Potential, Freshwater Eutrophication, and Acidification Potential. The results show that increasing the recycled content significantly reduces the environmental impacts across all categories. Scenario S3 had the lowest GWP, human toxicity, and acidification levels, demonstrating that recycled materials can reduce the carbon emissions. Adding CR resulted in reduced material demand, enhanced pavement durability, and lowered future maintenance and environmental impacts. Both OpenLCA and SimaPro showed similar trends, with OpenLCA proposed for future use because of its greater accessibility and cost-effectiveness. Overall, this research highlights the importance of using recycled materials in road construction to support sustainable development, especially in developing regions. It also stresses the need for region-specific Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data to improve the model accuracy and guide environmentally responsible decisions in pavement engineering.
Keywords:
recycled pavement materials, life cycle assessment, OpenLCA, SimaPro, sustainable constructionDownloads
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Copyright (c) 2025 Israa F. Al-Saadi, Abbas F. Jasim, Sady A. Tayh, Rana A. Yousif
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