Australian city Fremantle has become a pioneer that applied recycled rubber from scrap tires to develop footpath; and the city is not planning to stop and will keep on practicing the method in similar projects.

The new footpath at the Thompson Road is similar in its content to a playground for kids (molded tiles and surfaces from crumb rubber). Moreover, it doesn’t restrict planting of trees along it.

Fremantle infrastructure engineering manager David Janssens commented on the development saying that the new path from recycled tires was created as part of the bigger local plan to find unconventional practices to apply recycled products. He noted that it was important to come up not just with an environment-friendly, but at the time with an economically viable method helping save municipal funds.

The Thompson Road development is the first municipal project that involved recycled tires. Janssens noted that tire rubber turned out to be “hard-wearing” and he anticipates less maintenance costs due to the surface’s flexibility which is greater than that of the conventional materials, according to the engineering manager.

He also stressed that Fremantle may consider using the innovative rubber again in other municipal initiatives.

Article by Community News.