THE son of a Grimethorpe miner has received a top engineering award for his firm’s work on using recycled tyres in Yellowstone National Park, USA.
Kevin Bagnall, who used to live on Nancy Road in the village, left Grimethorpe as a 16-year-old to become a Royal Navy diver.
He later returned to Yorkshire, working as a firefighter at Barnsley station, but moved into construction and formed his company - KBI - which expanded and set up its headquarters in Florida in 2002 where he lives.
The 58-year-old used rubber surfacing while building a play area and saw an opportunity before developing a new product - Flexi-Pave - which uses a clean, porous surface to return rain and snow to the water basin. His firm finished installing a pavement made of recycled tyres at Yellowstone in September of last year - work which landed him an accolade from Engineering News Record (ENR) on March 21.
The three-year project was the company’s first at a national park, laying 14,000 sq ft of Flexi-Pave.
“Seeing my father, Kenneth, come home with all the coal-mining grime on his face always shocked me,” Kevin said.
“To have a cleaner environment, we have to have people thinking better about what we leave for our grandchildren. As urbanisation increases, population density increases, waste streams increase and tyre waste does, but fresh water does not. The pavement allows 3,000-plus gallons of groundwater to pass per sq ft per hour. Rubber granules and stone are held together by a polymer binding agent that is inert when cured. The product also doesn’t leach pollutants into the ground or break apart like asphalt.
“I’m a Grimethorpe lad but the award, and the creation of the product, are my proudest moments.”
