The Potential of Recycling Used Tyres

Tires are a big problem in our waste streams, taking up a lot of space and posing environmental concerns. It’s important to recycle them as soon as possible, because the more discarded tires that end up in landfills, the longer they can take to degrade.

Pneumatici Usati

There are many different ways to recycle used tires, including: Recycled rubber can be used in the production of a wide variety of products. It can be incorporated into different materials, such as elastomer composites for flooring and playground surfaces, or it can be combined with other polymers, such as thermosets, to create low cost, green, composite blends.

Crumb rubber is finely ground rubber produced from discarded tires and can be used for a variety of applications, including rubberized asphalt, playground flooring, welcome mats, anti-fatigue mats, vehicle mud guards and more.

From Waste to Wealth: The Potential of Recycling Used Tyres

It can also be molded into new products, such as shoes and sandals. Bridgestone Indonesia, for example, entered a partnership in 2020 with Soles4Souls Asia to turn 40,000 end-of-life tires into about 400,000 pairs of shoes by the end of 2022.

These shoes will be distributed to people in need around the world and/or sold through various outlets with a portion set for donations.

Tires can be shredded and processed into chips that can be used as a liner or a cover for landfills, as a thermal insulation between primary and secondary landfill liners to reduce temperatures and as an efficient and cost-effective landscaping medium.

This process of recycling tires into rubber products has the potential to be a huge resource saver, because it reduces the need for raw materials and creates jobs in local communities.

In addition, it is possible to recycle scrap tires into fuel for power plants. The energy that is wasted when discarded tires are landfilled can be turned into electricity, which has the potential to help meet growing global energy needs.

The process of converting a waste product into another valuable resource has the potential to be an economic engine for the City of Baltimore, creating jobs and new products while reducing landfill volume. The process is an extension of the city’s Waste-To-Wealth program, which seeks to foster businesses that capture and repurpose valuable resources before they enter the waste stream.

Several companies have established tire-shredding business models and are currently operating in the United States, but there is still room for growth. Some tyre-shredding businesses use mechanical systems that scrape tyres into smaller chips at ambient temperature while others use a cryogenic system that freezes tyres at low temperatures, shattering the tyres into small particles and then separating the fibers using magnets.

The process of converting used tires into rubber has the potential to be an economic engine for Baltimore, creating jobs and new products while ensuring that waste is reused or recycled before it ends up in our trash bins. This process is an extension of the city’s waste-to-wealth program, which seeks to foster new businesses that capture and repurpose valuable resources as a means to combat blight, feed resident-led greening efforts and revitalize our neighborhoods.