green wheels

It is now standard practice for tyre retailers to impose a tyre
disposal charge when you change your tyres, which tends typically to be
about £1.00 a tyre. You may wonder why you have to pay this charge -
after all tyre disposal charges have not always been the norm.

The real answer to this question is that it is a simple case of
economics – a case of supply and demand. Going back twenty years the
scrap disposal scenario was totally different to the way it is today.
It used to be the case that car tyre retreading companies would collect
the majority of used tyres as the raw material for their production.
They used to pick up the used tyres free of charge (or even pay for the
privilege).

However, that was when over 4 million retreaded car tyres were sold in
the UK every year. In the meantime the market for British manufactured
retreads has been squeezed by cheap new tyres from the Far East to the
point where the UK market is no more than a tenth of what it was. This
means that retreaders no longer pick up the scrap tyres. This is done
by professional tyre disposal companies who need to charge the retailer
for this service.

Much of the tyre disposal in the UK is now carried out by members of
the Responsible Recyclers Scheme, which is now administered under
license by the Tyre Recovery Association. Members of the scheme
guarantee that the tyres collected are disposed of in an
environmentally friendly method, whether recycled or used as a fuel in
cement kilns. As a guarantee, members of the scheme are subject to a
stringent audit process conducted regularly by independent
environmental audit specialists.

The Responsible Recyclers Scheme also promotes best practice in the
tyre recovery industry and helps protect against the continuing scourge
of fly-tipping.

In the UK around 40 million tyres are taken off car, vans, trucks and
buses every year, a total of 440,000 tonnes. That is a huge amount of
scrap to dispose of and it has to be paid for somehow. Although the UK
tyre recovery industry currently has enough capacity to cope with scrap
tyre arisings, the balance between overcapacity and undercapacity is
relatively fine.

Of key importance in the tyre disposal market in the UK is The Landfill
Directive, which was adopted by the UK in July 1999. This banned the
disposal of whole tyres by landfill from July 2003 and shredded tyres
from July 2006. This has changed the entire scenario of how tyres are
disposed of and recycled in the UK and Europe. There are a number of
ways in which scrap tyres are recycled in the UK although all of these
can be defined as either reuse, recycling or recovery.

Retreading is still considered to be one of the most preferable method
of tyre recycling as it effectively doubles the life of the new tyre,
reducing the numbers of new tyres needed and thereby minimising waste.
Retread still make up nearly half of all truck tyres on the road but
the number of car tyres that are retreaded is now relatively small.

Other common uses for scrap tyres include sports and recreational
surfaces, landfill engineering, carpet underlay/floor coverings, and
road building. Roads manufactured using crumb rubber last longer, have
better traction and reduce noise.

In the UK scrap tyres are also widely used as a fuel in cement kilns as an alternative to the traditional fuel, coal.

About Author :
Article produced by BlackCircles.com – discount tyres for cars, 4×4s, and commercial fleets in the UK. Tyres can be ordered online and fitted at your local garage.

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