Car tyres are a major global waste problem. Collectively we drive 1.5 billion tyres to the end of their useful lives every year. They can be retread and reused up to a point, but not endlessly. And at the end of their usefulness you have a conundrum. End of life tyres (or ELTs) are difficult to process for any kind of recycling, because they’re a complex mix of materials – natural and synthetic rubber, fibre and wire, all in a heavy and unwieldy package. They’re not biodegradeable, so tyres don’t rot down naturally. And every year we use more of them.
This has been an issue in developed nations for a while, and a variety of strategies have emerged to deal with them. The EU has led the way, and 100% of tyres are processed in some way in continental Europe. Some countries levy a tax on tyres and then the government takes charge of them. Most EU countries have made the tyre companies responsible for taking them back at the end of their lives. Britain has a free market for end of use tyres, which manages to deal with 95% of them.
Elsewhere, the growth in car ownership is often outstripping legislation to deal with waste tyres. Billions of them are now stockpiled around the world. So what do we do with them all?
The easiest and worst thing to do with ELTs is to put them in landfill. Here’s a photo essay from Kuwait, where tyres are piled up in their millions and then buried in the sand. We used to do this in Britain too, but it’s now illegal under EU waste directives. The trouble with tyres in landfill is that they leach toxins into soil and water. In tropical countries they fill with water and become a paradise for breeding mosquitoes, making them a serious health risk. Even if you’re tempted to ignore both of these issues – because you’re dumping them in the desert, say – they’re also dangerous. Tyre dumps are a fire risk, and burning tyres are notoriously hard to deal with. A valley full of 10 million tyres caught fire near Knighton in Wales in 1989. It took months to put the fire out, and then it smouldered until 2004 – an impressive 15 years.
So landfill is a bad idea. Besides, dumping them loses the materials and energy they contain. But since they burn, maybe that gives us an obvious solution – incinerate them to generate electricity, or for heat in steelworks or cement kilns. This is known as ‘energy recovery’, and that is the fate of about half of Europe’s tyres. They’re quite a good fuel, as it happens. They are as energy-dense as coal, and they don’t produce nitrous oxides. Where they displace coal, tyres could arguably be considered a greener option. But they do produce other pollutants, some of which are a health risk. The exact environmental impact of energy recovery depends on how they are burned and what sort of scrubbing technologies are used, but we’re talking about the lesser of two evils here. It’s better than landfill, but we’re only capturing some of the energy in tyres, and the materials are still lost.
There are a number of ways to reuse the materials in tyres, and since the EU banned sending tyres to landfill, a whole lot of research and development has gone into it. Lots of new businesses have emerged that treat end of life tyres as a resource. One of the more common is the rubberised surfaces used in playgrounds and running tracks. There are only so many of these in the world though. With mountains of ELTs to get through, we need large scale uses – like road building. Ground up tyres are now regularly used in asphalt, and there are several advantages. Roads with rubber in them have better grip, and they’re 50% quieter. They last three times longer than normal tarmac, and don’t need as much maintenance.
Another potential customer is the railways. Recycled rubber pads can be fitted under railway or tram tracks to reduce noise and vibration. Switzerland has been doing this since the 70s. An Italian company called Greenrail goes one further and has developed a sleeper made from ELTs. This reduces demand for concrete and ballast, and they run quieter too. 35 tonnes of used tyres would go into each kilometer of track using Greenrail sleepers.
In the hierarchy of waste strategies, recycling come after reuse, and many tyres are already retread and sold on. Retreading has been possible for a while, and the technology to do it is better than ever. Unfortunately, public perception of remanufacturing is a problem. 90% of buses and trucks have retread tyres. Taxis and commercial fleets use them. The general public are more sceptical. That’s something that needs to change, as keeping tyres in circulation for longer is one of the simplest ways to reduce the waste mountain. Regulation varies around the world, and nobody wants to drive on inferior tyres, but in Britain retreads have to meet exactly the same standards as new tyres. They should be more common.
Even with all these techniques in play, we have an underlying sustainability problem. Natural rubber is still a key ingredient in tyres, and that means we’re still relying on forests to supply our raw materials. As more people drive, the demand for natural rubber is increasing, and the risk to forests and biodiversity increases too. In the long term, we’re going to need more radical alternatives. And that’s going to have to be another post.
Feature image by Scott Webb
The Earthbound Report 
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I believe in South Australia, Adelaide Brighton Cement Company use tyres as a fuel source to heat the furnace that turns clinker into lime. but I am not an expert on this. I might be using incorrect terms. the claim i heard is that the heat of the furnace is so great, the tyres combust in such a way that the fumes given off (pollutants) is next to minimal. can tyres be used in furnaces that create electricity?
That sounds reasonable – there are different ways of burning used tyres, and they produce different levels of emissions and slag. The most efficient is plasma gasification, which has very low emissions. Perhaps that’s what they use in Adelaide.
Yes, tyres can be used to generate electricity. Most energy recovery is for industrial heat, but there are whole power stations designed to run on tyres. In other places tyres and shredded and used as part of a fuel mix alongside coal and biomass.
Jeremy please refer to me for the perfect, patented solution of all time that exists today. A tyre processor that breaks down the tyre into its component parts (high quality oil, steel and carbon black) provides a healthy cash flow to run the plant, runs at EPA approved emission levels, is powered by syngas generated from the breakdown process and supplies excess energy to the national grid.
Hi, please get in touch me with me at lyderkanav@gmail.com, Thanks & Looking Forward!
Hi Charles, if you need proper 360 solution on the above mentioned process (pyrolysis) i should be able to help any one who is looking for solution in Australia.
Really interesting article. We need to start pushing technology and development in a way that works in conjuction with nature not with plastics alone but all of the products we use.
Hi guys
I represent a company that has developed. Gasification/pyrolisis process that could convert those end of life tyres into hydrogen and electricity. 1.5 billion tyres would require approximately Assuming 100 tyres per ton (car) 1,750 plants each plant could produce 2 tons of hydrogen per day enough to service about 400 cats a day with 5kg of hydrogen there would also be surplus electricity.
Check out Powerhouseenergy.net
My idea which I have just put to the European ture manufactures association is a return scheme where by the tyre manufacturers take back each tyre they make (in reality they may be competitors there would have to be some kind of offset and combined requirement of other manufacturers not just their own ones) they would process after stripping out the metal for recycling and the electricity could be used to power their factories to make new tyres and the hydrogen cod be used for their diliivery fleets and fork lift trucks At the factories.
It’s close to circular. At least you are getting a second use of the inherent energy within the tyre and the waste problem is being eradicated.
This also avoids toxic waste being absorbed into the environment. As there have been concerns of tiny micro rubber tyre getting into people airwaves at children’s parks on college Astro turf and even if used in roads micro crumb would be created as in plastics.
Oh and by the way the process works on plastic as well plastic to hydrogen
Why not do a piece on this solution.
Paul Wareick
Waste2tricity
0044 7903 486347.
Here to help project ready to roll.
Hi Paul
I tried to contact you but was un successful
Please contact me if possible Looking for more information on how can we generate electricity using waste tyres
Hi
Im ryzzal, CEO of EMJAC. EMJAC is the World’s 1st Waste to Green Energy Blockchain Project and aims to be the leader in the industry to recycle waste tyres globally by deploying green technology with the latest blockchain technology.
EMJAC RND Team has found a solution that would be able to recycle 100% with ZERO emission producing Syntactic Diesel EURO Grade 2, Carbon black, Stainless Steels and Syntactic gas that will be use as Co-Gen for the reactor . We would love and happy to received this or in fact to bring and setup our recycling plant and technology to landfill.
EMJAC requires $ 1.5 mil as capital. If you guys be able to get investors, do contact me at :
email – ryzzal@emjac.io
tel : +60189678767
Kindly visit us at http://www.emjac.io