Turning old into new
As the economy grows, so does prosperity and quality of life—but, unfortunately, so do mountains of waste. In Malaysia, where the manufacturing industry has been growing steadily since the 1980s, industrial waste and its inadequate disposal are becoming a problem for both people and the environment. This is precisely where the School of Civil Engineering, University Teknologi Malaysia comes in with its project "SEER-GreenCon": scientists are cleverly reusing old tyres and other industrial-waste products as sustainable building materials. Their research has resulted in a new class of concrete, enriched with used tyre rubber and fly-ash, providing a sustainable, economical construction alternative. The use of recycled resources lends this new concrete a very special quality: it improves the damping and plasticity of buildings—an innovation for earthquake-resistant construction.
