Waste tires are a huge management and disposal problem. It is estimated approximately 290 million scrap tires are generated annually in the United States. Stockpiles of old tires present serious environmental and health problems. Mosquitos and other pests breed in tire piles and they are a potential fire hazard. Tire piles also can contaminate surface water run-off and cause such problems in landfills that many states have banned them from their landfills.
The number of tires being discarded provides an almost limitless supply for those who find a way to reuse and recycle them. Recycled tires are used in a variety of ways such as tire-derived fuel (TDF), civil engineering projects and ground rubber such as track surfaces and railroad crossing blocks. However, some green-minded companies are coming up with sustainable ways in which discarded tires can be used to create a product from this waste material which would otherwise be creating an environmental and health hazard.
Pennsylvania based ECOsurfaces has come up with a way to use waste tires to produce durable rubber flooring. Their products, which range from ECORocks, which provides a sophisticated look appropriate for lobbies and commercial buildings to ECOnights, appropriate for everything from industrial to sports applications, are created in a manner which uses resources wisely and protects the quality of the environment. Water use in production of ECOsurface products is kept to a minimum, reusal of scrap, no use of smoke stacks and no heat is involved in creating ECOsurface products. The ECOrocks product can be seen on the tour of sustainable features here at 311 Financial Way.
Earthship Biotechture, based in Taos, NM is a global company offering totally sustainable housing designs. The major structural component of Earthship houses is recycled automobile tires filled with compacted earth to form a rammed earth brick encased in steel belted rubber. The brick this forms is virtually indestructible and the dense mass of this wall system collects and stores temperature keeping the Earthship cool in summer and warm in winter. One Earthship reported a maximum low temperature of 64 degrees after two cloudy days and a -17 degree winter night, newer Earthships can reportedly expect the lowest temperature to be 68 degrees.
GroundScape premium groundcover produced by Brooklyn based GroundScape Technologies, is a multi function, multi use permanent landscape mulch, designed and engineered as an alternative to mulch, sand, stones and pavers. It is designed to replace bark landscape mulch and it lasts for years without replacement. It will not rot, mildew or decompose, it won’t attract insects or pests and users of the product have reported that it is far cleaner than regular bark mulch and ideal for places like playgrounds.
With the use of recycled tires in this manner, tire stockpiles are decreasing, in 1990 over 1 billion tires were in stockpiles and by 2003 that number had dropped to 275 million. In the United States over 75 percent of all scrap tires generated last year were reused in some fashion.
ECOsurfaces website
http://www.ecosurfaces.com/
Earthship Biotechture Website
http://www.earthship.net/
Groundscape Technologies
http://www.groundscape.com/
Posted By:Samuel Green
Comments for this blog
| No Comments for this blog entry. |