Tire Where?

by Fishermen’s Voice Staff

Million tire pile. One of many in the U.S. there is no known information on how a tornado would effect one of these large piles.

Americans go through about 290 million vehicle tires every year. Where does all the worn off tread go? Some curious people have been wondering.

The Deep Water Horizon dumped 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Of that 800,000 barrels were recovered by vessels. Abrasion wear from the estimated 290 million tires discarded annually releases 4 times the Deep Water Horizon spill volume in tire wear particulate (TWP). Tire particulate is small, some small enough to remain suspended in the air. This volume is equal to 4 ultra supertanker capacities of tire particulate spilled into the US environment each year.

Some particles are tiny enough to make their way deep into the lungs. That particulate consists of zinc, latex rubber, carbon black, polyaromatic hydrocarbons and other constituents. When breathed in it is one of the causes of asthma in cities.

Of the 290 million tires discarded 52% are burned as fuel in the cement industry and 30 million are re-treaded. Of them 85% are car tires, the rest are from heavy-duty trucks. It has been estimated that 2 to 3 billion (3,000,000,000) tires have accumulated over the years.

Of the approximately 290 million tires discarded in 2009, 250 million were from passenger cars and light trucks at 25 lbs. each and 40 million were from heavy-duty trucks at 120 lbs. each.

To get a feel for the weight of all this the turf industry has estimated that 5 lbs. of tire is lost to wear from each 25 lb. passenger car tire. The loss to wear on a 120 lb. heavy-duty truck tire is 20 lbs. each. Together that’s 2.1 billion lbs of tread loss annually or 625 million tons which equals 2.1 million barrels of oil. Then there is the 210 million discarded tires piled and lying around.

No one has come up with a graphic for what 10 years worth of TWP would look like piled up in say Houston.

But the question remains, where does all this TWP material go?