Where does the used rubber from car tyres go to?

Question

I know it wears off but its non decradable or whatever tht word is.It doesn't ever go away so there should be piles of it everywhere

Answer 1

They've tried all kinds of ways to recycle tire rubber. They've made roads from them, running tracks, football fields, all kinds of stuff. The latest is to make sidewalks out of them.

Answer 2

You seem to know what you want to ask, let me try to help explain. I've asked myself this exact Q when I was younger.

If you scrape a roadway lane where tires normally go you will find rubber, not much, but it will be there. Tires are made of many ingredients including petroleum and different types of chemicals, rubber is only one part of a tire. The tires wear down as they move our cars and trucks over the roadway. This rubber is not degradable, and therefor, does not go away. The Sun's Ultra Violet (UV) light, along with heat, helps to break down this rubber and separate it from the other chemicals. The chemicals and rubber is almost totally picked up by other tires and moved on - spread out. The small bit of rubber that is left behind gets soft, then other cars travel over these "smears" of rubber and smash them even flatter onto, and into, the roadway surface. These can be seen as build ups in the middle of the road, however, a good portion of this build up is also just motor oil drippings from cars. These smears are usually formed - or left to stand - where tires do not normally go. Rain and cold, on the other hand, tend to cause these same smears to lift off, and out of, the roadway. When it just begins to rain the effect of the rainwater lifting these smears, and the oils, will cause the road to become very slippery. After a good bit of rain these smears are not completly washed away from the road but the oils and chems used are, and the road becomes "normal" again.

Hope this helps. And if you become a scientist do your job well. We'll all be depending on you!

Answer 3

Scrap tires are normally recycled; about 78% of all tires are remarketed in some form (reference 1). Tire chipping is very popular; it is possible to shred tires into virtually any size, from chips the size of your hand all the way down to powder. Powder form is then sorted by its properties into components- rubber crumb, steel (from steel belted radials), and fiberglass (for reinforcing). These individual components can then be sent to other applications.

Tire chipping is very important, as stockpiled tires present an extreme fire hazard; the smoke is toxic, and the runoff (from both hydrocarbon liquids coming off the pile, as well as mixed water and sludge from extinguishing efforts) is very nasty. Stockpiled tires also present a health hazard from accumulated water, which allows mosquitoes to breed.

Chipping and shredding machines have come a long way. A tire reprocessing plant I once visited had the capacity to shred 16' tires used on large dump trucks normally used for large copper pit mines. I forget if they had to chop them in half or in quarters before they fed them into the machine, but they were very well-organized- except for the fire prevention thing. Eventually they caught on fire, and (being located upwind of the city) polluted the air for days.

Answer 4

We in India shred the tyre and boil it with lime and mix it with oil to make reclaimed rubber. It is a hot cake in our country. Mixing up to 10 % in the virgin rubber will improve the quality of the tyre and other rubber products. But people use more amount of this types of reclaimed rubber to reduce the cost of raw materials.

Answer 5

The rubber is actually very gregarious. The little pieces try to get back together and you have probably seen them, but not realized what was happening.

As the pieces get back together and subsequently get larger, they try to get off the roadway. The larger they become the farther from the roadway you will see them. Eventually, they will get back together as nearly intact tyre/tire and you will see these escaping the roadway -- often caught on a fence post as they try to get away.

Answer 6

We're breathing it. There are many projects to recycle tires by using them to make paving material and to fuel energy plants that reduce pollution by burning them at an extremely high temperature. Some solid (not pneumatic) mower tires are made from a machine that punches out the sidewalls of old tires and laminates them together. Back in the old days, we used them to burn in orange groves when the weather turned too cold for citrus, but that was terribly polluting.

Answer 7

When I was last in Africa, I went on a months tour of Tanzania and noticed that the Massi people used old tyres to make footwear or sandels - look comfy enough and I suppose relatively robust for the environment.

Answer 8

I worked at a place that took the tires and made them into shavings then used thoes to make rubber flooring like in weight rooms and things like that.

Answer 9

The word is non-biodegradable.
Used tires are burned, or go into landfills.
The rubber from the road is buried under additional blacktop, or disintegrates. Non-biodegradable means it cannot be absorbed into the earths soil, or into the water.

Answer 10

Some of the tires go to make new running tracks and the floor at parks so kids don't hurt themselves.