Tyres do not biodegrade. But they are 100% recyclable.
This picture is from the outskirts of Kuwait city showing an old tyre grave with 20 year old used discarded tyres lying in the open.
The above statement is a very strong statement that tells about the potential of tyres to damage the environment and at the same time to be of use to society. The fact is even after 500 years, tyres do not biodegrade but they break down into small and small parts that never degrade. They get spread or distributed in the environment that results in grave damage to planet earth.
An interesting article from Harvard Business Review '21 (click here) tackles this issue in depth. Tyres along with all plastics, smart phones, computer hardware etc. fall in the bottom right quadrant of the Circularity matrix (easy to access and hard to process).
Design for Recycling (as these parts cannot be reused) to retrieve valuable parts, recover rubber for road construction and concrete, process to retrieve biofuels, retrieve steel wires and other precious metals is presently according to research, the best way to recycle tyres.
The other circularity strategies of Retain Product Ownership and Product Life Extension will not work for these products
It is high time used rubber tyres start getting recycled as fuel in furnaces of cement and iron and steel companies (already happening) and society finds useful ways of disposing old tyres. Rubberised roads where old tyres are mixed with bitumen to give strength and durability to tarred roads is one useful way. Studies have shown that finely shredded used tyres can be mixed with cement in concrete to give strength and durability to concrete.
Will humanity find an innovative way to process these used tyres to benefit humanity through the Circularity route ? As one of my friends suggested, if we can restrict the personal transportation sector by offering better public transport, this menace can be nipped in the bud itself as car tyres take up a high percentage of global tyre sales, almost 60%. These days tyre wear particle pollution in the atmosphere is more deadly than vehicle exhaust pollution.
2.4 billion tyres were manufactured globally in 2022 (49% in China followed by US, EU and India) and is expected to grow to 2.8 billion by 2028. Click here for a purchasable report of global tyre industry.
George
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