Ubiquitous – (adjective) having, or seeming to have, the ability to be everywhere at once.
Tyres for example, could be said to be ubiquitous. That’s not surprising considering the sheer number of vehicles around these days. Cars, trucks, busses and bikes all rely on rubber tyres and we produce 37,000,000 of them each year. Worryingly, this figure is estimated to increase by 60% before 2018.
Old tyres aren’t particularly easy to get rid of either. The problem is, they’re much more than just rubber, for a start, they’re vulcanised.
Vulcanisation is the process used to make rubber more durable, otherwise our tyres would simply shred along the road. This is done by “curing” the rubber with sulphur and other chemicals to produce a much more hard wearing material. Unfortunately, it’s the vulcanisation that makes tyres so difficult to dispose of.
Burying or burning is the method that has been used in the past, but neither are great ways to dispose of old tyres. One way or another the chemicals used in the vulcanisation process will either be leeched into the ground or into the atmosphere. That’s why, since 2005, it’s been illegal to send tyres to landfill. Even shredded tyres can’t be buried, not since 2006. And since tyres are classed as controlled waste, burning them has required a special license since 1994.
All these chemicals make life very difficult when it comes to disposing of our old tyres and we haven’t even mentioned the fabric lining and the steel ring. It’s for this reason that tyres make up the bulk of waste dumped by fly tippers.
It’s not all bad news though. In 2004 the Tyre Recovery Association was set up to help with the problem. Thanks to organisations like this, companies are now aware of the need to recycle and reuse old tyres where possible.
In a future post, we’ll look at what can be done with our old tyres and hopefully come one step closer to a closed loop recycling system.
