[The world of recycling used tires]
| Country | Waste amount | Waste numbers | Material recycling percentage | Layout distance |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Europe | 3,230,000 ton | About 250 millions | About 45% | travel around the earth 3.75 times | |
| The United Stats | 4,410,000 ton | About 300 millions | About 30% | travel around the earth 4.5 times | |
| Japan | 1,050,000 ton | About 100 millions | About 35% | travel around the earth 1.5 times | |
| China | 1,000,000 ton | About 100 millions | Non data | travel around the earth 1.5 times |
[The current status of tire recycling]
In our affluent society, billions of tires are dumped all over the world every year. According to research delving into the durability and the resistance to deterioration of tires, tires won't be decomposed into soil even after 100 years. As such, post-processing is a major concern. Discarded used tires are highly flammable and may catch fire. When water accumulates inside them, they can also become a major breeding ground for insects such as flies or mosquitoes. This problem is a serious social issue for residents living in the vicinity of the dumps.
[An increasing demand for cars and the dumping of tires]
The procedure for recycling used tires needs quick and drastic improvements. Currently, "thermal recycling" (the burning of waste as an energy source for electric power plants) is the most popular way of disposing used tires. In Japan, 88% of used tires are recycled, mostly through thermal recycling. This method, despite being a very effective energy source, causes serious environmental damage such as CO2 and dioxin emissions.
*1 "thermal recycling" Creating thermal energy by burning waste products to create hot water, steam and electricity.
[High-tech tires are hard to recycle]
"The extraction technology for fibers and wires"
All tires have wires and fibers to stabilize their intensity and quality. Concerning passenger cars, these fibers and wires are tangled in a particularly complicated way. This makes the recycling process difficult and costly.
"High quality material is harder to recycle"
Since tires are made for handling intense movement and heat, it is not easy to melt them with high heat with current technology. Even if they can be melted, it is still hard to take the pure rubber out, because all the tire-makers use different components.
"The slow progress of molten material research"
Since the rubber itself is hard to melt, a molten material has to be added to the crushed rubber crumb to transform it for recycling. Creating rubber that can be recycled for various kinds of products is difficult because of the lack of progress in molten material research. This is the situation in Japan, and it may be the same in all developed countries. In most of the developing countries, used tires are just dumped outside or burned in an incinerator without countermeasures against dioxins.