The project is the brainchild of Professor Veena Sahajwalla, who works with UNSW's Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT). The SMaRT research unit undertakes a number of projects that seek to upcycle secondary materials into products with longer lifecycles.

The research netted Professor Sahajwalla the 2012 Australian/Shell Innovation Awards, with the winner receiving $10,000.

"By thinking outside the square, and carefully recalibrating some important industrial processes, we can convert waste back into raw materials for production," Professor Veena Sahajwalla said.

"In steelmaking we have already shown that by adding an optimised blend of granulated waste tyres and plastics to electric arc furnaces we can efficiently 'react' the waste at high temperatures during steel production.

"A bonus is that the waste blend improves furnace efficiency so also reduces electricity usage.

"At the OneSteel plants using UNSW/OneSteel's polymer injection technology, which calibrates and optimises the waste blend injected into furnaces, 1.5 million used tyres have already been 're-formed', making EAF steelmaking more efficient in the process."

The research is potentially good news for the recovery of tyres onshore, with many tyres recyclers going bankrupt in the last decade years due to increasingly larger volumes of whole bailed tyres being exported.

The video below profiles the new initiative.