Issues that occur from waste tire in the nature
1) Amount of waste tire entry to the nature:
The input of used tires to nature is so high that considering the average of two years of operation for each car, the amount of waste tire production per car is four pieces.
For example, in a city with one million cars, four million tires enter the cycle of nature in two years, or in other words, two million tires per year.
Considering the average weight of twenty kilograms of each tire, forty thousand tons in the year of entry of these tires will be estimated, which is an environmental disaster.
In the pictures below, we can see a huge depo of waste tires in Kuwait which is a natural disaster.
2) Damages caused by waste tires:
These problems can generally be divided into physical and chemical issues. However, they cause a lot of biological problems as well.
– Physical damages
Due to the presence of various plasticizers in the tire, these materials evaporate slowly and reduce the formation of vapors with flash points, which is a very risky situation in the tire accumulation environment to cause fire.
In addition to the above conditions for starting fire by flammable vapors, it should be considered that the rubber body is also hydrocarbon polymers which are highly flammable materials.
Therefore, they perpetuate and increase the extent of the fire.
Picture below can be shown as an example of these fires.
On the other hand, as we have explained, the very strong bond between the molecules of tire elastomers (vulcanization) makes the recycling of these materials in nature very difficult and long.
So, it takes hundreds of years for these substances to return to nature. By time, the tire dries and becomes brittle and slowly turns into fine particles that these particles, due to contact with running water, rain and snow, eventually find their way into the waters of the oceans and groundwater.
– Chemical damages
The chemicals inside the tire are very diverse. From benzene in plasticizers to chemicals in vulcadors and more.
Let’s look at just one of these factors.
For vulcanization of elastomers during the production of tires, usually three to five percent of sulfur is added to the composition, which with the example we have given above for the city of one million cars, including the number of forty thousand tons per year of tire input to more than one thousand tons of input which enters to nature and cause damages.
3) What have humans done so far to solve this problem?
Usually in every city, there are special rules for used tires. These rules Include the facts such as the floor should be concrete or a wall should be considered as a protection around the place, etc.
From this stage onwards, the operation of removing these tires is performed in different ways, which companies do with special instructions for themselves.
Below, we will examine the operation of these companies.
– Companies that collect these tires and transport them to developing countries in the name of destruction, and sometimes even sell them to these countries.
Tires imported to countries where environmental monitoring is weak, such as some African countries or even Eastern Europe.
These tires are burned as fuel in factories such as cement factories and etc. without any filtration and monitoring.
I do not see any need to prove that this is a catastrophe, because if we take the whole world as our home, it does not matter if it is an environmental catastrophe in Africa or in Europe.
We are all on the same boat. The photo below is an example of a cement factory with worn rubber fuel.
– Another type of companies that claim to solve this problem are companies that separate and market the steel wires of these tires.
The rest of the tire is eaten and granulated, and some gets mixed with new elastomers and produce rubber plates that are used in children’s playgrounds, sidewalks and etc.
These companies use special government subsidies to make money both from steel wire and from the sale of tire products.
Unfortunately, the performance of such units increases the environmental damage of this process, because ultimately this product is in the cycle of nature, and the only action done is to fine-tune the grain size of tire parts.
The entry of chemicals and destructive substances of these tires into nature becomes easier and the amount of pollution also increases. In the pictures below, samples of the products of these companies are shown.
– Companies that separate steel wires and the rest of the tire to achieve lighter hydrocarbon molecules (pyrolysis oil) by molecular cracking operations inside the reactor.
This liquid can be used as a fuel.
Companies that use this technology are the only systems that actually remove waste tires from the cycle of nature, but unfortunately in this technology there are many environmental and security problems that if you do not pay attention to these problems, this technology is also loses its advantage.
In practice, we divide the problems of this technology into two categories: security and environment.
