ArmaTerra® Georeinforcing is Awarded Best of the West CleanTech Open Green Building Award
Silicon Valley and Fremont, CA (PRWEB) October 16, 2013 -- The CleanTech Open is a world wide competition and business accelerator for businesses in one of 8 categories of sustainable enterprises. The mission of the CleanTech Open is to find, fund, and foster entrepreneurs with big ideas that address today’s most urgent energy, environmental, and economic challenges. ArmaTerra Georeinforcing of Reno, NV became the Western Region Winner in the Green Building category in this 6 month program.
“We are very happy and proud of this recognition. It is quite an achievement for us as we have been working on gaining more traction with the investor community,” says CEO, Sergio Nevel. “This award coupled with a recently issued patent will help to take us the rest of the way to commercialization.”
Michael Merrill, ArmaTerra’s Chief Technology Officer started working this idea several years ago. In 2009, he joined forces with Sergio Nevel to create a company to take his ideas to market. Since then, they formed ArmaTerra® Georeinforcing and began patenting Michael’s innovations. When retaining walls, slopes and levees are reinforced today, the state of the art is to use polymer or metal georeinforcing elements to strengthen the earth that is being retained and reinforced. ArmaTerra’s technology instead uses recycled tire treads that are uniquely configured and fastened using a proprietary non-corrosive fastening system.
Current products are less favorable than GeoTire® products because polymer based products are not as strong as metal and, therefore, less desirable for robust applications such as for use in highway construction. Metal is stronger and more widely used for such applications but presents other problems like corrosiveness which sometimes results in a reduced life and a high cost of trucking in special backfill when native soils amplify this problem.
GeoTire® provides the strength and non-corrosiveness because it is a product made with metal and coated with a synthetic cover. Tire treads are made with steel belting and are coated with a synthetic blend made of vulcanized rubber and latex. ArmaTerra’s process ensures that the metal is not exposed and the fastening system used to link as many treads as are needed for each job is made of a very strong non-corrosive nylon.
Of the 300 million waste tires generated in the U.S. each year, only 50% are beneficially repurposed. Approximately 40% are used as fuel and burned and 10% still end up in land fills. GeoTire® products put these tires to a higher and better use. They are also longer lasting, require no special backfill, are very strong and can save many private and public dollars when accepted and used in the construction of highways, rail systems, bridge abutments, marine applications, temporary and permanent retaining walls, mining and industrial roads/ramps, slope reinforcing, and in retrofitting existing earthen levees.
“We believe that our company and our products are perfectly poised to help America rebuild its infrastructure in a profitable, green, and sustainable way,” says Nevel. “This recognition goes a long way in acknowledging our vision and the clarity of our mission.”
ArmaTerra® Georeinforcing is an early stage start up Nevada Corporation that is currently seeking demonstration projects as well as investment from accredited investors in order to scale up operations.
Sergio Nevel, ArmaTerra, Inc., http://www.ArmaTerra.com, +1 775.825.5841, [email protected]
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