Due to contributions from illegal and legal tire disposal processes tires have become a top pollutant in the United States finding their way into our neighborhoods, lakes, streams and private properties. Most US tires that enter the general waste stream legally end up as a heavily polluting fuel, as ground rubber for turf and mulch in civil engineering uses. Some of these tires still go to landfills and virtually all privately disposed tires end up in the environment creating tire piles. These tire piles are notoriously dangerous and a risk to public health bringing an increased risk of fire, rats, feral hog and disease-carrying mosquitoes.
In addition to the possible negative health implications, the tire dumpings also sequester the efforts of realizing economic development opportunities. Scrap tires carry the highest financial burden to clean up and they just keep coming. In 2014 alone, Dallas, TX approved spending more than $3 million to remove thousands of dumped tires from Lake Ray Hubbard. Texas currently leads the nation in the number of illegal scrap tire piles dumped across the state. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has identified around 16 million scrap tires in illegal dump sites that they know of and estimated that Texas generates 36 million waste tires annually.
How to Reduce Tire Dumping & Waste
- Buy Retreads, preferably remolded retreads. If you move over to the city of Houston Scrap Tires page or almost any city government page about scrap tires and they will point out that purchasing Retreads is a real solution to reducing our tire dumping epidemic.
- Personally, drop your old tires off at a recycling center. You can find a full list of them here.
- Properly Air your tires to get better mileage out of them.
- If you have a lot of premium casings you have stored you can see if they pass our inspection for purchase here.
TreadWright is the Environmental Game Changer
TreadWright offers a possible solution to legal and illegal tire disposal. TreadWright uses a mold cure process that spares the noxious fuel burning seen legal tire disposal process in TDF and saves a vast amount of rubber and other materials wasted by reusing premium casings. A remolded tire saves 75% of the rubber used in a new tire by following a similar process of a brand new tire of applying new rubber to a pre-fabricated casing. The tire casing contains 75% of the tire’s rubber and all of the steel, Kevlar and other technology that gives a tire its strength. The tread rubber is essentially the replaceable eraser on the pencil. While Treadwright will only remold a tire once, the casing essentially has an infinite life unless punctured or otherwise injured on the road. Thus the tire lives on without being burnt for fuel or dumped in the environment. 75% less rubber also equates to an enormous amount of oil saved given a lot of petroleum products used in rubber manufacturing.
The commercial world has enjoyed the cost advantages and environmental benefits of remolding for decades, but this remolding’s first entry into a true consumer product. For years, manufacturers and start-up companies efforts to “green” the tire recycling process has been the butt of jokes and the source of many notable failures. However, consumer tires are the vast bulk of tires used in America and Treadwright has the ability to finally change the calculus in tire recycling. The tire industry has not seen meaningful innovation since the introduction of steel belting in the 1960’s and has evolved in a largely commodity industry. Treadwright’s environmentally friendly, American made alternative is the first truly new consumer offering in decades.
Even if a tire can be reused only once, that cuts things in half. If one didn’t use a remold, then one buys a NEW tire with a new core, thus there are 2 tires that are consumed. Using a remold then one can use one core for the life of two tires. Sure it will eventually still need to be recycled somehow (hopefully), but doing a remold, reduces the slang by one SET of tires