EMULSION CATERS TO ROADS AROUND THE WORLD

World production of emulsions for road construction and maintenance now exceeds 7M tonnes per year. The main countries producing it in 1997 were: the USA, France, Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Japan, and the UK. A table gives statistics about their annual production of emulsion, and the proportion of bitumen that they use in the emulsion. For economic reasons, emulsion production fell in most European countries during the 1990s, but there have been outstanding production increases for similar reasons in some developing countries, including Mexico, Brazil, and Thailand. After about 70 years of using emulsions, creative innovations and improvements in their techniques are still occurring, for example in surface dressings, bond coats, dense graded cold asphalts, slurry surfacing, and cold recycling. Other aspects of emulsions that are becoming very important, due to the high quality and professionalism of the industry, are environment, safety, and quality. Two types of communication, information followed by education, are essential to the development of emulsions. For example, the French bitumen manufacturers' association, SFREB, has made two important contributions to education and training: (1) a CD-ROM summarising all knowledge about emulsions; and (2) participation in the IRF training programme.