What We Lose When We Do Not Recycle Tires
When we do not recycle tires, we start dealing with incredibly serious problems. The avoidance of tire recycling has now become so serious that a big number of countries have introduced special laws regulating tire disposal. Nevertheless, there is still a lot of cases of unsanctioned tire dumping and illegal storage. It signifies that the trend of neglecting tire recycling is still ongoing among our ignorant public.
Tire Recycling Helps Eliminate Fire Risk
The most striking feature of tire rubber is that it can be used as a fuel thanks to its great burning properties. However, this advantage can simultaneously be a disadvantage, as the risk of fire emerges with it. Given that even tire shreds are flammable, imagine, how devastating the effects of fire that emerges among massive amounts of whole scrap tires kept at one site may be, as non-recycled tires contain larger volumes of methane gas. The cases of extremely dangerous fires are not rare. Moreover, more and more media platforms, including Web Ecoist, Mental Floss and even our blog create material related to this subject.
Tires are known to have the capacity to keep on burning for months, or years in some instances. Sometimes the cleanup may last much longer than the actual fire. In 1983, Virginia witnessed The Rhinehart Tire Fire which transformed 7 million stockpiled tires into free-flowing tar which had detrimental effects for the soil and water. According to Web Ecoist, it took almost 20 years to remove catastrophic mess, which was caused by the fire.Environmental Threats Arise When Tires are not Recycled
One of the tires’ component is synthetic rubber, which makes these products non-biodegradable. Thus, the special chemical makeup of tires is responsible for penetration of toxins into soil and groundwater. It has not been yet scientifically proven that tires sitting in piles leach exceedingly unsafe amounts of chemicals, including zinc oxide. However, it is undisputable that tire incineration is extremely dangerous for the environment. Thus, tire recycling should be preferred over the unsustainable method of tire burning.
Scrap Tires and Mosquito-Borne Diseases
The most hidden threat of tire recycling avoidance is spread of diseases. The actual tires do not cause these infections, but they come as a result of special conditions that emerge inside the waste: tires are often used by mosquitos as a favored breeding place because stagnant water accumulates inside after rainstorms, and this creates perfect conditions for these insects to lay eggs in. After 14 days since breeding, a new mosquito will be fully developed and ready to start sucking human blood and spread serious diseases.
