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Rubber Recycling

Want to know about Rubber Recycling?

If you've ever doubted the importance of rubber recycling, just consider this:  there are hundreds of millions of vehicles on the road today, and when you multiply by four that's an astronomical number of tires.

Tires wear out, suffer blow outs and other damages, and then need to be disposed of, possibly costing you a fee. This might lead you to ask: can you avoid paying a fee to dispose of your tires? We'll get to that in a bit, but first let's quickly recap the situation we're faced with.

The issue

Tires are made to last and  don't degrade easily

With landfills filling up with waste and consumers without landfill access stacking tires up, disposing of used tires has become an enormous issue. Tires are manufactured to last and these lasting chemicals don't degrade easily. They can take many years to fully disintegrate, but not without leaving contaminated soil. In order to dispose of tires, they need to be processed differently, and one of the ways to avoid costly tire disposal is to join the rubber recycling movement and recycle them in accordance to local and national regulations.

Current solutions

Tires can be recycled in a rubber recycling plant; the product is used in many surfaces and as ingredients for new products. One of the uses of tires recycled through a recycling plant is in road building and maintenance. They use recycled tire shreds for highway embankments, interstate ramps, bog landfill to build roads, and reconstruction of shoulders, steep slopes, retaining of forest roads, coastal areas and backfill for walls and bridge abutments.

You'll also see tire shreds and crumble used in playgrounds, as a gravel substitute, for drainage around building foundations, arena footing and as a protective matting for livestock, restaurants and other areas where padded (anti-fatigue) and non-slip surfaces are needed.

New research has recycled rubber tires being used as tire derived fuel (TDF) with coal or wood. Using tires as fuel produces 25% more energy than traditional coal and the same amount as oil. In order to use tires in most combustion units they need to be reduced in size and have additional processing such as de-wiring. Many local or national environment agencies support waste-to-energy use for tires, but prefer to see them used or recycled in other forms.

Fee free disposal

So how can you dispose of your tires without paying a fee? There are many uses for your tires besides rubber recycling plants. Search the internet and you'll discover how to make a tire swing, how to use your tire as a planter, make bumpers for boats, garages and they actually work well for containment of livestock or any other area that needs to be protected. Creative people are constantly coming up with ingenious new ways to put these to good use.

In conclusion, with millions of tires on the road today, we have a growing consciousness to reuse and recycle. A rubber recycling plant is a convenient way to recycle your tires. If you balk at paying a fee to dispose of your tires and don't want to just leave them laying around, you may be able to find ways to use them at-home or work. Let's do our part to dispose or re-use our tires in a responsible manner.

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