How We Deal with Car Tire Waste

Once they are worn out or not in a usable state, most tires are thrown away and left in empty lots, abandoned spaces, river beds and backyards. There are three ways to prevent car tire waste:

• Recycling tires.
• Using completely degradable synthetic rubber for a tire.
• Reusing tires in different applications.

An effective way of getting rid of tire waste is using newly developed synthetic rubber for tires. Once this material is discarded, it is easy to degrade it back to its chemical building blocks and it can be reused as new tires as well as other products.

The scientists came with the idea with the plan of taking a byproduct of the petrochemical industry to turn it into recyclable value-added chemicals that can be used in tires and other applications.

Making the tires with degradable materials will prevent the huge number of tires from getting wasted.

The first basic molecule to be used in making degrading tires is called cyclopentene. These days, butadiene is used as the base material by synthetic-rubber makers. This step can be a revolution in the history of tire making.

A large number of tires are thrown away every year that cause environmental damage. The annual number for the United States only is 300 million.

These tires are needed to be disposed off, but safe disposal is difficult due to the huge number. The only safe option is recycling the tires and reusing them.

The huge number of tire waste that is 300 million, is almost one tire per person in the US. Not to mention how much space of the valuable land is taken by this trash, which ultimately pollutes the environment.

Tires have a hollow rounded shape that holds water in it, resulting disease-carrying mosquitoes and rodents increase.

Moreover, they consume a lot of space and tend to trap gases like methane. If this trapped methane emits, it can lead to a fire, and fire from tires is not easy to extinguish.

By recycling tires, you can get tire-derived fuel (TDF). It can be used as an alternative to fossil fuels that can produce 25 percent more energy than coal.

Tire chips can be used instead of gravel mostly. The uses include – highway embankment backfill, aggregate for drainage ditches and sub-layers of roadways.

You can prevent frost penetration by using tire chips in cold climates under roads.

Tires can be shredded or chipped to be used as liner and cover for landfills.

Tire chips have some thermal insulation properties, so they can be applied between primary and secondary landfill liners to lower temperatures.

Another way of using recycled tires is rubber mulch. Advantages of using tire parts as garden mulch are that its appearance is retained over time and it does not float away during rainstorms or rot like wood mulch. It does not even attract termites or other pests.

This is the finely ground rubber that can be produced from waste tires. To derive this, steel and tire cords are removed, and the remaining rubber is reduced to a granular consistency, which leaves crumb rubber.

This rubber can be applied in playground flooring, vehicle mudguards, rubberized asphalt, welcome mats and anti-fatigue mats.

Tire chips can also be used in wastewater treatment and constructed wetlands as filters after being shredded in a uniform size.

Rather than organic compounds like rocks and other material, tires can be chipped to be porous as required, so they serve as much better filters.

Tires can be used in a lot of innovative ways. You can reuse them by turning them into household items for daily use.

For example, you can use tire coffee tables, patio, swings, half tire hammocks, garden stairs and many more. They are cheap and yet can bring a unique look to your home.

Car tire is an essential part of modern society, but we cannot let it cause harm to our environment.

Wastage of tires also means wastage of money, so we must seriously consider recycling and reusing of tires. The tires, previously wasted, will also come to great use by this initiative.