Recycled Rubber Medians

The city of Compton, California, is installing recycled rubber medians at its most notorious intersections to physically block street takeovers — and reporting a 45 percent drop in sideshows as a result.

Instead of relying on police response alone, the city is mounting modular barriers, sold as Street Defender Curbs, directly onto the asphalt. The medians reduce the open space a driver needs to spin donuts without risking damage to the vehicle, part of what officials call an aggressive elimination campaign.

A Low-Tech Fix Built From Recycled Material

The barriers are manufactured by New York-based RubberForm Recycled Products from 100 percent recycled composite materials. City engineer Jack Gong said the rubber medians are engineered to last at least ten years and cost a fraction of poured concrete while standing up to high-velocity impacts.

Compton chose rubber over more rigid alternatives for a practical reason: modular rubber barriers are durable and cost-effective, and their profile deters drivers without destroying vehicles that cross them.

Early Results and Expansion

Initial installations targeted three hotspots — Alondra Boulevard and Central Avenue, Long Beach Boulevard and Compton Boulevard, and Wilmington Avenue and Stockwell Street. At Alondra, where medians went in back in February, crews report no visible tire marks from donuts since installation.

According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Compton and its unincorporated areas saw a 45 percent decrease in takeovers during the first two quarters of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier. The city now plans to extend the barriers to roughly 30 additional intersections.

One early lesson: takeovers are simply relocating to unprotected streets nearby, which officials say reinforces the need to keep scaling the physical redesign alongside new state and county penalties for sideshow participants.

Learn More About Scrap-Tire Rubber End Markets

• Advanced Tire Pyrolysis Technology
• Recovered Carbon Black Production
• What Is Pyrolysis?
• Feasibility Studies

Partner With The KleanTeam to Build Scrap-Tire Value Chains

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Recycled rubber medians are one more signal that scrap-tire rubber is becoming a real, growing industrial feedstock. Klean Industries builds the processing facilities that turn end-of-life tires into the recovered carbon black, pyrolysis oil, steel and rubber granulate that feed products like these — closing the loop from discarded tire to durable infrastructure.

Klean’s Key Advantages:

• ✅ Thirty-plus years engineering commercial tire and plastic pyrolysis plants.
• ✅ 3 recovered carbon black (rCB) plants built in India over the past 2 years.
• ✅ Signed LOI to deliver five more rCB plants in India.
• ✅ KBR added Klean’s proprietary TyreNova tire-pyrolysis technology to its IP portfolio.
• ✅ KleanLoop blockchain provides end-to-end scrap-tire feedstock traceability.

Ready to turn scrap tires into the rubber products industry wants?

Speak with a Tire Recycling Expert at Klean Industries » GO.