That is the sound of an asphalt recycler that is part of the Columbus' get green program. Assistant public service director Mary Carran Webster says the 140,000 dollar machine makes its own hot mix to fix potholes,
"The environmental impact really is that instead of the asphalt that was milled off winding up in a landfill or something it is being turned into a product that is being put back into the road," Webster says.
Equipment operator Mike Brown describes the mixing process as simple. He says asphalt from construction sites is loaded into the recycler which then operates like a big clothes dryer. "You feed it through the machine. It goes through three stages of burners, you discharge it out the back and you got blacktop," Brown says.
Brown says the asphalt recycler is still in the experimental stage. He adds it makes ten tons of ashpalt per hour and Brown says that sparked interest from other highway departments.
"We had a lot of people come look at it, ODOT, Franklin County, couple of townships. We might have started something here," Brown says.
The Ohio Department of Transportation recently paid Columbus for use of the machine to repair potholes in the Polaris area.