Scrap Tire Market

RMA 2002. U.S. Scrap Tire Markets 2001. Rubber Manufacturers Association, Washington, DC. World Wide Web Address www.rma.org. 

TABLE 15.1 2009 US Scrap Tire Generation (US Scrap Tire Markets, 200 ... 

The tire is a complicated composite product consisting of tread, undertread, carcass, innerliner, bead, and sidewall. Many different types of rubber and carbon black reinforcement are used in manufacturing tires. Therefore, GRT is a blend of various rubbers and carbon blacks. Accordingly, in using GRT powder and devulcanized GRT in new tire manufacturing, many factors should be considered. Evidently, scrap tire powder can be used as a filler for virgin rubbers and devulcanized GRT can be used in blends with virgin rubbers. This market consumed approximately 1.354 x 10 tons of scrap tire rabber in 2009 (US Scrap Tire Markets, 2009). 

Scrap Tire Markets in the United States, 2009. 9th Biannual Report, May. 

US Scrap Tire Markets, 2009. Scrap Tire Management Council, Rubber Manufactures Association. Verbruggen, M.A.L., 1999. L van der Does, J.W.M. Noordermeer, M. van Duin and H.J. Manuel. 

U.S. Scrap Tire Markets 2001, Scrap Tire Management Council. 

The design of a tire with its several component materials yields its unique performance characteristics. It also makes the tire a particularly challenging product to recycle. The recycling infrastructure has developed technologies to grind tires and separate the materials in them. There are several markets for end-of-Ufe tires. Some ground tire rubber finds its way back into automotive parts such as splash shields and brake pedal pads. A list of scrap tire markets is given in Table 17.5 [12],... 

Another potentially large user of I DE is the Tennessee Valley Authority. TVA is in the final year of a three-year test of I DE at its AHen station (Memphis, Tennessee). If this faciUty begins using I DE on a production basis, and if one or two other TVA faciUties join in, the potential market for scrap tires would be enormous, consuming some or all of the tires generated in several states. 

The use of scrap tires in industrial faciUties is also a potential growth market. Perhaps the best known user in this category is Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (Decatur, Illinois). Another industrial user, Elexsys (Sauget, Illinois), uses energy derived from its use of IDE as a supplemental fuel to manufacture chemicals used in the mbber industry. 

In Japan, scrap tires are used to fuel Pordand cement kilns. The process was developed by the Bridgestone Tire Company and has increased gready in importance since 1980. The Saitama plant (Nihon Co., Ltd) bums 140,000 tires, as weU as oil, per month to produce 258,300 t of cement (qv) per month (17). Cemenergy (Loomis, California) and Emanuel Tire Company (Baltimore, Maryland) cement companies and paper mills bum scrap tires to produce process energy (18,19). It has been predicted that 238 million passenger and tmck tires wUl be consumed by the energy market aimuaUy by 1997 (20). 

The civil engineering market for scrap tires encompasses several distinct uses. Whole tires have been used to constmct retaining walls and crash barriers. One pubhcized use is the constmction of houses and at least one motel (7). Whole tires have been used in erosion control, and to constmct breakwaters and artificial reefs. 

Small tire chips have also been utilized as a soil amendment to improve athletic playing fields (see Recreational surfaces). A patented process marketed under the trade name Rebound (fai Tire) combines cmmb mbber from scrap tires with composted organic material to reduce soil compaction, resulting in better athletic playing surfaces (52). Installations have been made in Florida, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Virginia, and Wisconsin. 

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has opened another market for scrap tires in resilient playground surfacing. Many schools and recreation facilities ate reconfiguring playgrounds to make them more accessible, including the use of resilient surfaces which can be traversed by wheelchairs. 

The goal of most scrap tire utilization projects is to find markets for scrap tires so that they do not end up in landfills or on stockpiles. Ironically, one potentially significant use of tires is in the constmction and management of landfills. Both shredded and whole scrap tires have been approved in various states for use in constmcting leachate beds in landfills. Approval has also been given in some states for the use of shredded tire material as a partial replacement for required daily cover (42). 

F. T. Ryan, Scrap Tires A.ltematives and Markets in the United States Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., Washington, D.C., 1994. 

Goddard, H. C. 1992. Incentives for solving the scrap tire problem through existing markets. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 29, 165-177. 

The tire industry has consistently supported sound scrap tire legislation at both the state and federal level to ensure that scrap tires are managed in environmentally responsible ways. The tire industry has been a consistent participant in the effort to find appropriate markets for scrap tires, and to promote the expansion of those markets. 

J. R Sammgard, Ground Rubber and Civil Engineering Markets for Scrap Tires, Aug. 1994. 

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