Recycle Those Old Car and Truck Tires

Did you know that many people still burn old vehicle tires? In addition to being illegal, this is one of the worst things you can do to get rid of tires. It releases enormous quantities of toxins into the air and the ground, and they get into your lungs while you're burning them. Landfilling old tires isn't much better, since they never actually deteriorate in the landfill. They just take up space and produce toxic leachate. Fortunately, recycling car and truck tires is getting a lot more popular and is a viable option for people who want to do something more responsible with their tires.

Your tires just won't last as long as your car. They'll wear out and need to be replaced periodically. If you change your own, getting rid of them in the past was pretty difficult. That's why so many people used to burn tires or throw them away illegally. In the old days, even companies that were willing to take tires from you usually burned them, too. The substances released by burning tires include heavy metals like arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury, plus dioxins and other unpleasant substances. It's just plain bad for the environment and for human health.

Thankfully, nobody's burning tires anymore. Since more than a billion are sold each year, with more than two thirds of them replacing worn tires, nearly that many are discarded, too. Recycling numbers for those tires have gone from ten percent in the late 1980s to more than eighty percent today. The materials in tires can be recycled in a number of ways, though it's been challenging to find good uses for old tire material. Let's take a look at some of the things that are done with old tires to recycle them.

Most of us have our tires changed by professionals. If you don't, you should turn yours in to a recycling facility. One in four tires taken to a recycling location, either by an auto shop or an individual, will simply be retreaded and used again. Old tires that are too worn out for retreading may be ground, with the resulting rubber used to make rubberized highway asphalt. This material is less subject to cracking in areas with harsh winters, since the rubber allows it to expand and contract with temperature changes. That means asphalt lasts longer when it's made with old tires.

Shredded tires may be used to base gravel roads, or they may be used to replace sand and gravel in other road construction uses. They're also part of the surfaces for many indoor sports fields, including tennis courts, and are used to create safe playing surfaces in play grounds. For many uses, old tire rubber is cheaper then the collection and processing of new rubber for the same use. Plus, it gets rid of those old tires, which would otherwise pollute and take up space.

There's even an environmentally friendly way to burn tires that can't be recycled otherwise, but you can't do it on your own. Pyrolosis is a process by which tires are burned in a vacuum or an environment with reduced air. Many of the raw materials of the tire can be recovered, including petroleum products, carbon, combustible gas and steel. However, this process is complex, can be expensive, and must be done by professionals.

There are so many different ways to recycle tires and get more use out of them that it's silly not to do it. If you change your tires on your own, turn them in to be recycled. If you have them changed professionally, find out what's done with them afterward. Recycling tires is a smart choice.

Tags: car tires, suv tires, tire recycling, Tires, truck tires

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