Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => The Environment => Topic started by: Mavie flower on 10/08/2011 07:51:04

Title: How are tyres recycled?
Post by: Mavie flower on 10/08/2011 07:51:04
Many retailers that sell tyres will accept a limited number when you make a purchase. If you’re in the market for new tires, be sure to ask if recycling your old ones is an option.

Your state may also have a waste tyre plan, which would be headed by your state environmental department. Many states require recyclers to file for a permit to accept tyres, so they will also know of locations that accept tires for recycling.

But how to recycle tyres? why so much limit?
Title: Re: How are tyres recycled?
Post by: CliffordK on 10/08/2011 08:21:51
One should always consider reuse as part of recycling.

Back in the 70's, we drove retreads on my car, although I think we eventually had delamination problems with them (which I've had on occasion with other tires too).

Anyway, trucks routinely recap their tires.  It is rarely done with autos.  Perhaps because of a stigma from past problems.  Perhaps because it is more profitable to sell new tires.  Perhaps they don't design enough redundancy into the auto tire design to allow safe grinding and capping.

One other thing about the trucks, you can only drive the retreads on the back where there is a significant amount of redundancy.  In an auto, you typically only have 4 tires with no redundancy, and I don't think I'd put them on the front, that would only leave one with 2.

As far as recycling, it is apparently under utilized.  Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tire_recycling) has a good discussion about tire recycling and the pros and cons of the benefit.  It sounds like 80% of the tires end up in a landfill in one form or another.

Title: Re: How are tyres recycled?
Post by: Mazurka on 10/08/2011 17:07:39
The wiki article focuses on the US,  the story in the UK (and europe) is different.

Many of the collected tyres are shreded and used as fuel in cement kilns or other energy intensive processes.
Lorry (and similar) tyres contain (proportionately) far less steel reinforcement than car tyres so are easier to retread or to crumb (into playground surfacing & carpet underlay)

Tyres are now banned from landfill in the UK, although I have worked on sites that have used both hand placed whole tyres or shredded tyres as part of the site drainage system (installed befoer the ban!).  This worked as well as using single size (non calcareous) primary aggregate to form the drainage layer. I would also add that I have never seen a tyre float up through waste layers in a landfill site - the only way I could see this happening would be in a very wet site (without any real leachate control) or one with very poor compaction.  Such conditions may have existed historically, but i would be surprised if this still occurrs.     

Another very good use for tyres is baling them into "urro" blocks - where aproxiamtely 100 tyres are baled into a cuboid about 1m³ in volume.  These blocks are highly stable and have a variety of civil engineering uses, such as flood defence, embankemnts etc.  The main drawback is that they are not pretty and have an inconsistent surface.

 
Title: Re: How are tyres recycled?
Post by: graham.d on 16/08/2011 12:41:35
I'm not sure about recycling tires but I know when to retire cycles:

http://bostonist.com/2008/05/13/oddblotter_bay.php
Title: Re: How are tyres recycled?
Post by: Geezer on 17/08/2011 07:22:17
Damn bikers! The scooter lads would never do anything like that.
Title: Re: How are tyres recycled?
Post by: Karen W. on 21/08/2011 01:21:28
You can make flower planters, and do layered stacked tires each layer planted with potatoes. Take seven tires or no taller then you can reach..harvest the first tire remove that layer, then allow the second batch to grow, and harvest that one and continue downtown the bottom..works well to keep harvesting moving along..make sure you plant the first tire again covering the top to stop growth until you have replanted all layers in new stacks...
Title: Re: How are tyres recycled?
Post by: CZARCAR on 22/08/2011 14:58:11
You can make flower planters, and do layered stacked tires each layer planted with potatoes. Take seven tires or no taller then you can reach..harvest the first tire remove that layer, then allow the second batch to grow, and harvest that one and continue downtown the bottom..works well to keep harvesting moving along..make sure you plant the first tire again covering the top to stop growth until you have replanted all layers in new stacks...
Interesting.  Why do this? Keep harvesting moving along means?
Title: Re: How are tyres recycled?
Post by: Karen W. on 22/08/2011 16:29:54
You can make flower planters, and do layered stacked tires each layer planted with potatoes. Take seven tires or no taller then you can reach..harvest the first tire remove that layer, then allow the second batch to grow, and harvest that one and continue downtown the bottom..works well to keep harvesting moving along..make sure you plant the first tire again covering the top to stop growth until you have replanted all layers in new stacks...
Interesting.  Why do this? Keep harvesting moving along means?

you will find you can harvest continueously through the seasson..without being overwhelmed in one harvest because each layer will be protected into the winter keeping you stalked with fresh potatoes..... it mean to dig up the 1rst layer by the time you use that round of pirates..the next one will be ready to dig up...you should end up with potato's ready every several weeks and the tires help keep the frost from killing them and helpskeep the heat and earth warm inside the tire r
Layers...it helps reuse the tire and recycles them instead of throwing theminto landfill.
by the way you can place them in the muddy path of the heavy equipment like constrution machinery to roll over the top of mud rather then the equipment getting. Stuck or even for driving over rd surface and not damaging the roadway with the large tank like tread..so as not to break up the pavement...etc....
Title: Re: How are tyres recycled?
Post by: CZARCAR on 22/08/2011 16:48:49
You can make flower planters, and do layered stacked tires each layer planted with potatoes. Take seven tires or no taller then you can reach..harvest the first tire remove that layer, then allow the second batch to grow, and harvest that one and continue downtown the bottom..works well to keep harvesting moving along..make sure you plant the first tire again covering the top to stop growth until you have replanted all layers in new stacks...
Interesting.  Why do this? Keep harvesting moving along means?

you will find you can harvest continueously through the seasson..without being overwhelmed in one harvest because each layer will be protected into the winter keeping you stalked with fresh potatoes..... it mean to dig up the 1rst layer by the time you use that round of pirates..the next one will be ready to dig up...you should end up with potato's ready every several weeks and the tires help keep the frost from killing them and helpskeep the heat and earth warm inside the tire r
Layers...it helps reuse the tire and recycles them instead of throwing theminto landfill.
by the way you can place them in the muddy path of the heavy equipment like constrution machinery to roll over the top of mud rather then the equipment getting. Stuck or even for driving over rd surface and not damaging the roadway with the large tank like tread..so as not to break up the pavement...etc....
Have u done this?
Title: Re: How are tyres recycled?
Post by: Karen W. on 23/08/2011 00:25:39
Yes the tire planters.....the heavy equipment tip is one that the company's here have used when needing to work in this area on wet muddy conditions....