"This is regular asphalt and this is rubber modified asphalt."
They look the same, but MSU's Dr. Emin Kutay tells News Ten one is made with recycled tires that have been cut up into pellets of what's called "devulcanized rubber".
"We first mix this with asphalt binder at certain temperatures, at high temperatures," he said. "We mix it with aggregates, little stones, so we have an asphalt mixture design."
It's just one of six mixtures Dr. Kutay's research team has created with the Ingham County Road Commission to test out on our roads.
The projects started in 2011, with Waverly Road between Miller and Jolly Roads, which happens to be the only one not working out.
"The Waverly Road one is not performing as well as we would like it to have," explained Bill Conklin with the Ingham County Road Commission. "We're probably gonna be putting, we are gonna be putting a chip seal on that, either this year or next - to protect that. That was a fairly coarse-grated mixture."
But, where the rubber meets the roads on sections of Haslett, Cornell, Bennett and Lake Lansing Roads, the summer and winter conditions haven't stood a chance.
"When you put rubber like elastic or a flexible material, inside there, as the cracks progress, when they hit the rubber, they stop," Dr. Kutay said.
That's good news for Michigan drivers year round.
"Longer lasting roads and reduced waste in our landfills and vacant lots," Conklin said.
And, in the long run, less funding needed for our roads.
"If you need less maintenance over, let's say 20 years design life, then obviously this is gonna be a lot more economical in the life cycle," Dr. Kutay said.
Two other counties and six communities across the state, along with Michigan Technological University are all working on similar projects.
The Department of Environmental Quality just awarded the researchers a more than $2.9 million grant to continue their work.
With that, the Ingham County Road Commission plans to look at the section of Jolly Road between Meridian and Dobie Roads in 2017.
