Recycled vs. Virgin Road Base: What Contractors Should Know Before Ordering

When you’re pricing a job or scheduling aggregate deliveries, the question usually isn’t: What is road base?

You already know what you need it for. The real questions are more practical:

Does the material meet the project specification? Is recycled aggregate acceptable? What’s available? And how efficiently can you get trucks loaded and back to site?

At our South Burnaby Aggregate Depot, we currently supply:

• Recycled 19 mm Road Base
• Virgin 19 mm Road Base
• Virgin 75 mm Subbase

All three products are tested to meet MMCD specifications.

Here’s what you should consider when you’re planning your next load.

Recycled 19 mm Road Base

Our Recycled 19 mm Road Base gives you an option when your project allows a recycled aggregate product.

The material is produced from recovered construction material that has been processed into a consistent aggregate product and tested to meet MMCD specifications.

For contractors, the important distinction isn’t simply whether an aggregate is recycled or virgin.

It’s whether the product you’re ordering satisfies the requirements of the job.

If recycled road base is permitted by the project specifications, it gives recovered construction material another productive use while reducing reliance on virgin aggregate.

If the specification calls for virgin material, that’s a different conversation.

Virgin 19 mm Road Base

We also stock Virgin 19 mm Road Base, tested to meet MMCD specifications.

For projects specifying virgin aggregate, this gives you a straightforward option from the same South Burnaby yard.

You don’t need us to tell you whether recycled or virgin road base belongs on your project. Your drawings, specifications and contract requirements should determine that.

What we can do is help make sure you know what material we’re supplying, what is currently available and whether the product you’re picking up matches what you’ve requested.

That’s especially important when you’re coordinating multiple trucks or ordering materials for different stages of the same project.

Virgin 75 mm Subbase

For projects requiring a larger virgin subbase material, we supply Virgin 75 mm Subbase, also tested to meet MMCD specifications.

Again, this isn’t about choosing between 19 mm and 75 mm based on preference. The required material depends on the specified pavement structure and project design.

If you’re building up a road, commercial parking area or civil project, the drawings may call for different aggregate materials at different elevations within the section.

Knowing what’s available before dispatching your trucks makes it easier to coordinate excavation, placement and compaction without unnecessary downtime.

MMCD Specifications: Check the Job Before You Order

If you work on civil and municipal projects around Metro Vancouver, MMCD specifications probably don’t need an introduction.

But they’re worth mentioning here for one reason:

Don’t order aggregate based on the product name alone.

Confirm the material specified for your particular project and make sure what you’re purchasing corresponds with those requirements.

Our Recycled 19 mm Road Base, Virgin 19 mm Road Base and Virgin 75 mm Subbase are tested to meet MMCD specifications.

For engineered work, you should still refer to the applicable project drawings, specifications and contract documents before ordering.

That avoids the expensive version of: “That’s not what we needed.”

Especially when you’ve already hauled several loads to site.

Recycled vs. Virgin: Let the Specification Make the Decision

There’s a tendency to frame recycled versus virgin aggregate as though one has to be universally “better.”

For contractors, that’s not a particularly useful comparison.

The better question is:

What does this project require?

If the specification permits the recycled product, Recycled 19 mm Road Base may be an appropriate option.

If virgin aggregate is specified, we have Virgin 19 mm Road Base and Virgin 75 mm Subbase available depending on the required material.

The decision should come from the project requirements—not from trying to make one aggregate fit every application.

Ordering Aggregate? Think About the Inbound Trip Too

This is where our Material Division can help you get more productivity out of the same truck movement.

Our facility isn’t only an Aggregate Depot. It’s also a Transfer Station.

So before you dispatch an empty truck to pick up road base or subbase, ask yourself:

Do you have material leaving the project that can come with it?

We accept qualifying:

• Excavated soil up to CL+
• Broken asphalt
• Broken concrete
• Mixed asphalt and concrete loads

That creates an opportunity to coordinate your hauling differently.

Your truck can arrive carrying accepted material from the project, unload at our Transfer Station and then reload with the aggregate you need before heading back to site.

If you’re already moving trucks between a project and our Burnaby yard, getting productive use from both directions of the trip just makes sense.

We covered the disposal side in our guide to where to dump broken concrete and asphalt in Metro Vancouver.

One Yard, Both Sides of the Haul

Consider a typical reconstruction project.

You’re excavating material and removing existing asphalt or concrete while simultaneously bringing aggregate onto the site.

Those are normally two separate hauling requirements: Material out. Aggregate in.

Our Transfer Station & Aggregate Depot gives you the opportunity to coordinate both through the same Burnaby location.

Bring an accepted load in. Tip. Reload. Head back to site.

That doesn’t change your project specifications. It doesn’t change how your crews place or compact the material.

It simply helps you make better use of the trucks you’re already paying to have on the road.