Innovative use of waste tyres: Noise-barriers and geoengineering

Globally, more than 1 billion waste tyres are produced every year, and environmentally friendly end-of-life scenarios are highly sought after. Incineration to capture energy is a common practice. An improvement to sustainability is a cascaded use, where worn-out tyres are first being deployed in a meaningful way, e.g. as noise barriers or as embankment stabilization, where they can add value for several years to decades, before they are incinerated. The novel innovative use cases for tyres were found to offer advantages for the environment, while saving costs over materials that are being deployed today. This paper presents two recent innovations with waste tyres by a private inventor, and also highlights critical success factors for this type of innovator. Perseverance is one character trait a private inventor has to demonstrate in order to land a true innovation, focus a critical activity. Waste tyres can be considered an underutilized raw material.