Waste is an issue in every product. In the Sustainability field, Waste creates many opportunties.
One, waste means that the product’s life can be extended. Second, waste means the product’s end-of-life has not been taken care in design, or recycling or other ways. Third, waste means a loss of valuable resources which can be extracted. Fourth, waste means inefficiency, which means opportunity and profits for people who can remove it.
Lets look at tyres. According to some reports, there are a billion tyres which are thrown away every year. Some 400 million of them are recycled or are used as fuel and the rest are sent to landfill.
There are major environmental impacts of used tyres. However, this is the visible part and the environmental impacts are present in the entire life cycle of the tyres.
Source: Australian Commonwealth Department of Environment
For tyres we can use the waste mantra.
First, used tyres can be re-used. Some can be re-used. However, check for safety guidelines. Second, their life can be extended by rethreading or retreading. This is a common method in developing countries where the life of the tyre is extended. It happens on a smaller scale in developed countries. Third, they can be recycled. Fourth, they can be used for a source of energy.
Rethreading is an activity which can have a good business opportunity.
The major business opportunity comes from recycling the tyres and extracting its various resources and using it as a energy source.
What does a tyre contain?
Source: WasteOnline and WorldisGreen.com Analysis
In the energy use mode,
Energy recovery is essentially an incineration process that converts the tyre either whole or pre-shredded into another energy source. The largest application in the UK at the present time is in the cement industry.
And in the Materials recovery mode,
Thermal treatment of waste tyres can also be used to recover the physical elements of the materials used in the structure of the tyre for reprocessing into other products. There are a number of technologies being developed including:
• Pyrolysis
• Advanced Molecular Agitation using microwaves
• Continuous Reductive Distillation
The output materials recovered from these thermal reductive processes have a number of applications. Carbon can be reprocessed and activated for use as a filtration medium. It can be refined and reused as carbon black in the manufacture of rubber and other uses. Steel can be reprocessed as scrap in the manufacture of new steel or processed into reinforcing in concrete products. The oil can be reprocessed as a fuel and the majority of the gases can be reused in the pyrolysis cycle as a fuel source.
The market potential is big. If you look at Pyrolysis the resultant materials have a good market potential.
Source: Australian Commonwealth Department of Environment
This industry has been present before but it is becoming more important for a couple of reasons. One, new legislation in the European Union which bans sending tyres to the landfill and second, the increasing concern for the environment.
Not unrelated to the ELV Directive is the Landfill Directive (1999/31/EC). This specifically lists tyres as a major waste stream, banned the landfilling of whole tyres from July 2003, and will exclude shredded tyres from July 2006. Therefore, by the summer of 2006 it will be necessary to have in place reuse and recovery systems capable of handling virtually all of the tyres within EU member states that become waste.
Apart from these, there are many other uses of tyres including, flooring, tennis courts, crash barriers at motor racing circuits, roof tiles, artificial reefs and coastal defences etc.
Tyres provide a great many opportunities for corporations however, the only major issue is that at the end the supply of used tyres is a fixed market.
As a scientist who has been warning about sustainability and the risk of climate change for decades, public opinion is finally catching up with Dr Flannery.
