Tire Recycling

One of the most promising ways to recycle tires is by turning them into ground rubber "crumbs" and adding them to asphalt for paving roads, running tracks, runaways, and playgrounds. The result: pavement life is increased by 4 to 5 years.

If you are a commuter, consider carpooling. It saves on overall wear and tear on your cars.

Recycled rubber is also used in boat bumpers, carpet padding, and wire and pipe instillation.

In India, tires are cut up and used to make durable and inexpensive shoes.

A burning tire can leach 2 1/2 gallons of waste oil into the ground, threatening the ground-water.

Check your tire pressure! If all tires in America were properly inflated, we could save two billion gallons of gasoline.

Americans discard 280 million tires a year, 25 to 30% of which are re-treaded or otherwise reused.

About eight out of every ten tires in the U.S. wind up in landfills or "stockpiles." An estimated 2 to 3 billion tires are currently stockpiles in the United States.

At one site near Modesto, California, 8 million tires were stockpiled as of 1991. By 1995, through recycling efforts, that number was reduced to 2 million, although they receive 20,000 tires daily.

Artificial reefs, breakwaters and erosion control barriers made with whole tires can preserve precious natural habitats.

It takes half a barrel of crude oil to produce the rubber in just 1 truck tire.

A new trend in tire recycling has been to made tunics from used bicycle inner tubes.

When tires are ditched, they can collect rainwater. This makes them the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes.

In Iowa, 80% of used tires go to making tire derived fuel (TDF). The rest are made into products like door mats, crumb rubber, roofing, playground material and asphalt.

By chipping tires and recovering the steel wire, up to 99 percent of the average passenger car tire can now be captured for recycling.

Comment

We have 2-3 billion tires in landfills now and discard another 280 million tires a year. Why arent the landfill tires being recycled? How expensive is it to recycle those tires? How long does it take for tires to break down in a landfill? When they DO breakdown, do they pollute the ground, since they are petroleum products themselves? Why cant they just be ground up and made into new tires?