Tentative Conclusions on Tire Rubber Recycling

Recycling waste tire rubber is such large a problem that it could be covered only by a book entirely devoted to the subject. Eollowing the scope of the present book concerned with the cure of rubbers, only general considerations have been made by giving attention to applications employing, to some extent, the cure process. 

The principles for reusing scrap rubber from tires could be established according to four criteria amount of the rubber reused, simplicity in the process of reusing, production of material of value, and reduced pollution in the process. Another difficulty arises with the fact that better tires make recycling complex [64]. 

As for the amount of scrap rubber possibly reused, the method based on mixing the rubber powder with asphalt is surely of interest. 

A very simple method of reusing old tires in landfills could have been a possibility. But in Europe, the Landfill Directive has banned the disposal of shredded tires in landfills since July 2006. It should be added that whole tires have been banned from landfills since 2003 [11]. Elsewhere, a high court directive [65] did not permit burning of scrap tires as a substitute fuel in cement kilns for pollution reasons. 

When it comes to finding more complex systems of reusing the scrap rubber powder, recovery alternatives include pyrolysis, gasification, tire derived fuel, reuse and recycling, rubber reclaim, and retreading [3]. 

---