Background:
 CONTENTS: BACKGROUND: The disposal of waste tires has become a troublesome problem for sanitary landfills and municipalities across the country. Tires are manufactured to be durable; they withstand extreme environments and they do not easily wear out. These same advantageous qualities are what make them so hard to dispose of. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in 2003 approximately 290 million scrap tires were generated in the United States. Why does it matter? When tires are illegally stockpiled or dumped, they pose a hazard to human health and the environment:  No one wants them: In the world of junked items, tires have a bad reputation. Homeowners cannot simply toss their tires out with the rest of their trash because junkyards will no longer accept them. Unlike television sets, furniture and other trash items, tires are in a class all by themselves.
-->The public often assumes that the tires collected or gathered for recycling will eventually be reborn into new products. This is not always the case. While there are companies that accept tires for processing (for a fee), only a few sell the reclaimed components for stock in the manufacturing process. Many such firms chip or shred waste tires and then landfill the material, passing the tipping fee and processing cost on to the original supplier. --> Environmental, educational, and governmental agencies continue to seek out innovative and cost effective ways to utilize waste tires into useful and environmentally sound products.  WASTE TIRE STATISTICS: (1) At the end of 2003, the U.S. generated approximately 290 million scrap tires. Historically, these scrap tires took up space in landfills or provided breeding grounds for mosquitoes and rodents when stockpiled or illegally dumped. Fortunately, markets now exist for 80.4% of these scrap tires—up from 17% in 1990. These markets—both recycling and beneficial use—continue to grow. The remaining scrap tires are still stockpiled or landfilled, however. In 2003, markets for scrap tires were consuming 233 million, or 80.4 %, of the 290 million annually generated scrap tires: Another 16.5 million scrap tires are retreaded. After any retreading has been performed, 290 million scrap tires are generated. About 27 million scrap tires (9.3%) are estimated to be disposed of in landfills or monofills.  TIRE FIRES: (2) Tire fires, although infrequent, are serious situations that are difficult to extinguish and expensive to clean-up. Tire fires often become major hazardous incidents affecting entire communities—frequently requiring neighborhood evacuations and long, drawn-out fire extinguishing operations. These fires threaten pollution of the air, soil, and water. EPA, states, municipalities, and private companies have spent millions of dollars cleaning up tire fires across the country. EPA does not consider scrap tires a hazardous waste. However, if a tire fire occurs, tires break down into hazardous compounds including gases, heavy metals, and oil. The average passenger car tire is estimated to produce over 2 gallons of oil when burned. (Source: Rubber Manufacturers Association, April 2003) Oil that exudes into ground and surface water as a result of tire fires is a significant environment pollutant. In some cases, this may trigger Superfund cleanup status. For every million tires consumed by fire, about 55,000 gallons of runoff oil can pollute the environment unless contained and collected. This oily material is also highly flammable.  ECONOMICS OF WASTE TIRES: Waste tires are becoming an expensive nightmare for local governments. Scrap tire dumps can be extremely dangerous, and state regulations are making these dumps expensive to run. Average tipping fees in the U.S. as of March 13, 2006 range from $100 to $200 per ton(3), resulting in excessive costs for scrap tire disposal. Waste tires have become one of the most challenging components of the waste stream to manage. While productive uses (via energy recovery and recycling) are known, and more are emerging, none have reached a level of market penetration that diverts a significant quantity of tires from disposal (legal and illegal). There are three categories of market applications for tire-derived rubber: The economics of waste tire management differ depending upon whether the tires are stockpiled or part of the flow of tires generated annually. In the past, storage facility operators and landowners accepted tires for a modest fee, speculating that the tires would become a valuable commodity generating positive revenues for the operator. The markets did not develop as the speculators had anticipated. Consequently, existing waste tire stockpiles represent both an economic and environmental dilemma. Even whole tires generated as part of the annual flow are traded in negative prices. In the current marketplace the storage and transportation costs of waste tires plays a major role in the cost of recycling. Tire collectors (referred to as jockeys) demand and get fees averaging $2 per tire (even more for truck tires) from tire retailers and other generators. The collectors then pay tire recyclers’ fees typically ranging from $1.25 to $1.50 per tire. Presently, trucks can haul half of the legal allowable tonnage when carrying loosely loaded tires. Re Tread Products Inc. (RTP) method of removing the sidewalls from the tread portion of the tire at the beginning of the manufacturing process will have a major impact on both the cost of transportation and the cost of storing waste tires. The removal of the sidewalls from the tread portion of the tire is accomplished by using a commercially available sidewall removal machine that is easily affordable by tire retailers. The savings in storage and transportation of whole tires quickly recovers the cost of the sidewall removal machine to the tire retailer. The method of winding the tire strips into a variety of building products also represents a formidable improvement in the recycling of waste tires. Most current methods of recycling require the waste tire to be ground up and/or chemically or thermally altered before being reused. RTP's process is dramatically different in that it is only necessary to disassemble the tire into three pieces before reusing the tire in the production process. This method is also considerably more energy and cost efficient than current methods that remove most or all of the strength that is originally engineered into the production of tires before being reused. To further improve upon the tire recycling process, RTP will develop manufacturing techniques in small-scale, portable production facilities. References: (1).Basic Information. 22 Feb 2006. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 5 June 2006. <http://www.epa.gov/garbage/tires/basic.htm> (2).Tires Fires. 22 Feb 2006. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 5 June 2006. <http://www.epa.gov/garbage/tires/fires.htm> (3).Scrap Tire Facilities and Tipping Fees. 13 March 2006. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. 13 June 2006. <http://www.state.nj.us/dep/dshw/recycle/stftf.htm> | |
Copyright 2007 Re-Tread Products Inc. Email: rtp@retreadproducts.com Phone: (716) 244-8084 Address: Re-Tread Products Inc. P.O.Box 261 Great Valley, NY 14741 Design by http://www.matthouse.us Site Optimized for 1024x768 |
|
|
