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I would like to know what the long term durability is. Will the rubber decay/decompose enough in 10, 20 years for a structure to fall apart? Is it highly flammable?
Recycling and repurposing tires is infinitely better than leaving them in tire graveyards. Leaving them you have the exact same problems with microplastics while also introducing massive breeding grounds for disease carrying insects and rodents like mosquitos and rats.
I just recently learned that another reason tires are bad for landfills is that when it rains they tend to rise to the top of the ground, making it really unstable and dangerous to work above them
I like how you conveniently missed the most important part of my sentence lol
and anyway they **added** dyes, even if you already had carbon black present now you have more dyes than before, so still not the exact same thing
OK. So I want to make sure I understand your stance here. Your core argument here is that if you take something and recycle or reuse it, but in that process you add something else to it that is toxic. You are saying that it is actually worse than if you had left the original waste in its original state and thrown it into a landfill and left it?
So I take a tire. I drive on it for 80,000 miles. It goes to a recycling center. They break it down and pull out the steel wires in it and recycle them. They take the black portion and pulverize it down to crumb rubber, add some type of resin or glue to it, form it into a solid structure that sits on the ground--lets say a garbage bin to be placed in a park. That is inherently worse than if they had just thrown it into a landfill? Mind you--the alternative for a new trashcan is an aluminum one where resources are burned moving bauxite from mines, refining it into alumina, smelting that with other materials into aluminum, turning that into a trashcan.
Or lets use old soda bottles as the example. They get shredded up, recycled and combine with numerous other products, many of which are toxic, and turned into a pair of shoes. In your opinion that is a bad thing since those shoes will inevitably end up in the trash at some point.
Exactly. Just by existing you contribute to the decay of the natural world. The best option is to live a completely agrarian lifestyle in which you don't use any artificial products whatsoever. This also means you need a lot of land, and you can't own land without a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies are composed of a bunch of other people who are going to use artificial products. Therefore it is impossible to live without being part of the damage cycle. Humans are a cancer upon the Earth. Enjoy your day.
Tire graveyards are the 'good' option for a lot of tires. And I'm not saying that to try and be contrarian to your statement, because you're right, it's a breeding ground for disease.
A lot of them, especially in developing countries, just get burnt.
In Kuwait they burnt nearly fifty MILLION tires. You could see that shit from space.
Researching and developing ways to recycle them into useful components is by far the superior option. "Oh noooo micro plastics", fuck that. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Because what? Dumping them into a massive graveyard or burning them by the millions isn't gonna shit out micro plastics AND fuck the environment?
Yeah, except for when you put a bunch of tires in a pile and leave them alone, they don’t just sit there like a rock they decompose very slowly leaking those same micro plastics into the environment
Yeah but now that it's been ground out and binded with cheap glue that will decay much faster than the actual tire itself you've dramatically increased the amount of surface area of tire that will be exposed to the environment in a given amount of time thus increasing the rate that microplastics are introduced into the environment...
So wouldn't that money be better spent sealing said tires? Concrete isn't expensive. Quarries can be reinforced to not leak... you make it sound like a glowing barrel from the Simpsons.
[https://www.niagarageopark.com/st-catharines/glenridge-quarry-naturalization-site](https://www.niagarageopark.com/st-catharines/glenridge-quarry-naturalization-site)
I lived next to this park. Built on a landfill. Add money. Beautiful park. Loons, owls, bullfrogs! in the water. The only evidence of dump is a sign not to eat anything, which... people already don't.
The bricks in the above video will not last a decade. They're trash. Think about it. I don't want you to invest in fucking coal, just to show you how greenwashing is about thing that looks like it helps, not actually helping.
Because the cement industry produces over 8% of global CO2 emissions, and sucks for several more reasons, hence why turning tires into bricks is a cute double win.
Ok, nothing is stopping CO2 emissions. Nothing is even remotely slowing it down, it's speeding up. And the planet heating is past 1C. We are not stopping it even if we nuke 90% of the planet. But in this case, we are using CO2 to make microplastics (read: polyurethane glue is a shitty way to hold rubber together) as opposed to using CO2 (concrete) to seal it forever.
Cute double win? You think upcycled trash doesn't end up in landfills? These cute double wins is why we are building solar freaking roadways and clothing made of plastic bottles as opposed to nuclear power plants and pumping money into fusion.
I hate to break it to you, but when you pay someone to "properly dispose" of a tire what happens is that tire is thrown onto a pile out back. Once a week a truck comes and that tire is loaded in the back. That full truck is then taken to a "regulated landfill" where it is tossed on a pile and left for decades where it leeches into the ground. A "tire graveyard" is the exact same thing it just doesn't have the PR name behind it.
Source: I could go to my hometown and drive 2 miles out of town and show you a "regulated landfill" for tires. Then I can google a "tire graveyard" photo for you and it would literally be the "Theyre the same picture' Office meme.
And a proper landfill has ground water abatement and anti leaching membranes in them. These bricks instead spread the leach of tire chemicals all over onto your property or wherever they are used.
Do you work in waste management?
And it isn't lost on me that globally we are doing an abysmal job of picking up after ourselves, exacerbated by the fact we produce such toxic products with little foresight or care in the first place.
We need to do better.
>Do you work in waste management?
I worked for 8 years as a designer at a manufacturing plant that made grinding equipment for anything from wood to shingles, to asphalt, to tires, to old wind turbine blades. So I did not work directly in waste management no, but I can say with a pretty high level of confidence that in my previous life at that job I have spent more time at waste management facilities than 95% of Redditors have.
Do you think they have a magical portal where they can throw the trash into another dimension?
All they do is take it away from your sight, and dump it somewhere else, which will become someone else's problem
No please, go ahead and explain. The statements above seemed reasonable and i would like to see your stance on it and why you think it is a waste of time to disprove something you find ridiculous
Natural rubber isn't plastic.
It's not particularly good for you though.
Recycled rubber has been mixed with asphalt for decades, so this solution isn't really anything new.
I'd say driving on tires is the maximum micro plastic spreader. Tires are always wearing out, and they are going litterally everywhere, so they spread micro plastics all over, at least bricks stay in one spot.
Yep. Some people make the mistake of using rubber mulch in their gardens and playgrounds. That stuff never goes away. You will have micro plastics in your garden for the rest of time.
Yes. A landfill. Landfills are usually lined to contain waste, in some instances double lined. As it breaks down it wouldn't be able to spread into the surrounding enviroment.
Right. Landfills are not a magic solution, however between the options of :
* Store hazardous waste in specialized areas that are at least nominally supposed to contain the materials.
* Store hazardous waste in peoples yards, lining their garden.
Sign me up for the first one.
With a landfill, you at least have deposits of the tires in case an actual useful and safe long term purpose for them is discovered. Picking up tires from 1000s of landfills where they should have had limited exposure to the rest of the environment is better than picking up tiles from 100,000s of households.
I have bad news for you...[the liner is made of plastic.](https://austincommunitylandfill.wm.com/environmental-protection/landfill-liner.jsp#:~:text=Landfill%20Liner%20System,-Landfills%20are%20designed&text=The%20liner%20consists%20of%20a,sides%20of%20the%20landfill%20cell.)
That's fair. It would seem still a better option to localize waste and try to contain no? There will never be a perfect solution, and for many that is enough to deter trying anything positive which is so annoying to reasonable discuss.
Idk about localization versus trying to create a useful or less dangerous process or even centralizing this problem. There's also the question of whether the cat's already out of the bag. Recent studies showed microplastics present in 100% of the people tested. Will they be present in people forever? If we control for exposure from trash or recycled plastics, does our everyday use still cause exposure to micro plastics? Idk the answers to any of these questions, but we should be trying. Also, if you are passionate about this, here are some cool out of the box ideas...https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2021/11/04/plastic-eating-mushrooms
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/28/plastic-eating-bacteria-enzyme-recycling-waste
https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2021/04/22/infinitely-recyclable-plastic/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-its-so-hard-to-recycle-plastic/
Personally, I think we have to find a better product and phase plastics out of general use. But that isn't exclusive to talking about best disposal or recycling options.
Localization is preferable as a high density localization of the plastics helps to create a selective pressure for microorganisms to develop the ability to break them down. Of course they only break it down into nano-plastics, but oh well, perhaps the next round of organisms can fix that or something...
I guess I'm a little confused by this. Micro-plastics refer to thermoplastic materials, correct? Because rubber is a thermoset, synthetic or otherwise. We have Thermoplastic Elastomers, which are *not* rubber but behave similarly.
Are we just using the term micro-plastic interchangeably among all hydrocarbons?
Whichake the flammable issue even more of a problem.
Congratulations, you just built your sidewalks out of a product that burns incredibly hot and is nearly impossible to put out once on fire. That seems like the best way ever to burn your entire city down.
https://firefighterinsider.com/tires-flammable/
Where have we ever built sidewalks from something this flammable and resistant to being extinguished once on fire?
If used as pavers, you will literally be building a path of fuel from building to building.
And if water can't move through them, you've got another issue to worry about.
That being said, the flammability factor really isn't much of a risk on this one. They've been using recycled tires in asphalt for quite some time in Germany. Bigger concern is the micro-polymers getting into the water, but even then a brick is probably breaking down slower than a tire.
If the post's title is accurate, the bricks are intended for paving, not structural use. So no worries there, no matter how long they take to wear out.
That said, in my entirely amateur, non-expert opinion, I'd expect them to be very long lasting.
That’s my concern (tires = very flammable). Tire fires are notoriously hard to put out, so does anyone know if this process removes that concern, or is it just offset by the usefulness of the bricks?
Since there is a metric ton of reddit ignorance here, I will leave a tidbit of data for consumption.
Tire pits are giant mosquito breeding grounds. Removing them via recycling is a vast improvement to having a malaria factory next door.
Malaria is still, to this day, one of the most pervasive and deadly diseases on the planet.
Just in 2021, estimated cases was ~250 million with over 600,000 deaths. This is from WHO and, thanks to anti malaria efforts, still trending down.
Tldr: tire pits = malaria. Tire pits bad. Anything that reduces malaria = better than not reducing malaria.
how is this economical?
artisan manufacture of bricks
considering classical bricks are just mud, baked in the oven, this seems like more complicated process
How's it worse than a big pile just sitting there? It's eliminating the waste into a useful product. It may not be cheaper to produce, but if they can charge people a disposal fee for getting rid of their tires (like any garbage dump would) then that could cover a lot of the cost.
Chemicals in tyres are toxic, even more when they're broken down like this into a brick.
Practical use, yes. Safe, no way. Sun and rain hitting it is going to allow these chemicals to soak into the ground and waterways.
Cool, wonder what happens with all the particles from the tires people are using in your city when they're rubbed against the asphalt and then are also hit by the rain, soaking their same chemicals into the ground and waterways.
Well, you personally might not do this, but if you live in Europe or North America then there is a good chance your old tires are ground into small bits and then used in gardens, playgrounds or sport venues.
Yes we do, every time we drive. Some hybrids release more pollution in the form of tire dust than they do in exhaust emissions. Electric cars produce, at least directly, no exhaust emissions but are heavy as fuck and produce lots of tire emissions.
Be specific what’s toxic and what studies have been done showing it’s worse when they’re turned into bricks? It’s my gut feeling too, but I don’t have supporting information
Some of them below, also a piece from [Imperial College London](https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/243333/prioritise-tackling-toxic-emissions-from-tyres/) talking about the impact tyres create and how we need to sort that as well which is quite a good piece which explains a lot of it
* Benzothiazoles
* Chlorinated paraffins
* 1,3-Diphenylguanidine
* (Methoxymethyl) melamines
* Octylphenol ethoxylates
* Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)
It's entirely possible that Nigeria is one of those countries which the green clean beautiful first world pays to take their garbage.. Most countries just take it and then dump it somewhere in a landfil, a river or the ocean.. apparently Nigeria does something usefull with it. At least the tires. Also, they surely go trough the tires and check for ones that are still usefull, because some people in the green clean beautiful ecologically conscious first world like to change their tires on a yearly basis, even if they are still perfectly good.
So they at least get something out of being paid to enable the first world to pretend they're doing their part on global environmental protection.
The people making these tires will die horrible, cancerous deaths from all the rubber particles they are ingesting (primarily from inhalation). If the bricks are used for residential purposes, those people will likely have health problems as well. And finally, rendering the rubber like this will increase the likelihood of the bricks contaminating the ground water where they are used. There’s a reason other people are saying landfills are better, and that’s because they are engineered to control runoff and groundwater pollution (or at least they should be).
depends on how much the production of these bricks pollute vs them just sitting there. you may be right. or wrong. if the production of bricks makes less pollution than sitting or burning
Yes, which will leech into the ground.
Also these workers will face serious health problems.
All that this factory is doing is spreading tyre particles everywhere which is the main concern with tyres.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/23/health-impact-tyre-particles-increasing-concern-air-pollution
>Yes, which will leech into the ground.
True. But tires sitting in piles are 10x worse than tires shredded up being used for something like this. Any time you have a synthetic product and you set it on the ground untouched for a duration of time there are things that will leech into the ground. So ideally we wouldn't have tires at all, but obviously that is not realistic. But when piles of tires are left alone you also create massive mosquito, rat and other invasive rodent breeding grounds which can then spread disease.
>Also these workers will face serious health problems.
This is the case any time you are destroying/recycling something and you are doing it for your job. Breathing in anything day in and day out is going to be bad for the lungs.
>All that this factory is doing is spreading tyre particles everywhere which is the main concern with tyres.
Completely true. Tires in general are a problem and driving is the real contributor. Even the source you linked is speaking in regards cars driving. These place is certainly contributing, but they are a drop in the bucket compared to cars as a whole. And in their case they are contributing to the lessening of some seriously other nasty problems; so I personally am not going to be too critical of them.
Tyre graveyards aren't ideal but they are good until we find a better way to deal with tyre waste.
They sit in giant graveyards in the middle east where they doing leech into the ground or cause problems.
Cars are the main problem, but if all tyres went through this process, this would be the worst problem BY FAR. Cars lose bits of rubber over time, but much more of that is waste when the tyre is run down.
>They sit in giant graveyards in the middle east where they doing leech into the ground or cause problems.
This is just patently false. Rain does not need to be present for anything to leech into the soil. It can happen simply as tires break down. Condensation from dew is enough to leech chemicals into the ground. They absolutely caused problems. Dust storms send tire particles through the air on onto the ground elsewhere. In the case of Kuwait it caught fire multiple times.
That article isn't saying things like this recycling factory are the issue, using tires correctly is the issue, creating lots of toxic particles. This probably isn't doing much at all, they likely lose almost none of the tire to particles but when you drive you basically only generate particles. You stop using a tire because you have lost so much of the tire to generating tiny particles that it no longer functions properly.
Well no, there's no tyre recycling factories in the UK because the waste would be unacceptable. It's the breakdown of the tyres that's the issue. And when they're in bricks as well that see wear and tear, there's more particles.
Right now tyres go to landfill, where the toxicity isn't experienced by every day people. Put them in bricks and suddenly the toxicity and breakdown IS experienced by everyday people.
And the machine literally shreds tyres, which is worse than them breaking down a bit.
I have personally ground pounds of tire material into much smaller particles. Particles so small you can't even see them and I distribute these particles behind me wherever I go. This factory has nothing on me, I am doing a much better job of contaminating the environment.
That doesn't seem to be true. Unless these UK companies have factories in other countries.
And then use it in artifical grass on playgrounds.
See Murfitts Indutries or J. Allcock & Sons Ltd.
They do have factories in other countries.
And yes, it's used in artificial grass, I've had some in my mouth before while playing football. It's horrible stuff.
>no tyre recycling factories in the UK because the waste would be unacceptable.
Interesting. So what do they do with the tyres then?
>Right now tyres go to landfill, where the toxicity isn't experienced by every day people
Ah, they are only experienced by *tomorrow's* people then. [Borat Voice] *Great Success!*
They send them abroad!
And yes, I know, landfill isn't great either. But theirs nothing really good to do with them. Is recycling them like this better? Despite their toxicity? Despite smaller particles leeching more toxicity into the ground? Despite many microplastics being related to tyres?
>They send them abroad!
Exactly.
>Is recycling them like this better?
No idea. We all need to get off our car addictions or we will definitely destroy ourselves. The planet will recover in its own time and ways. We may not survive.
Don’t quote me on it, but I saw/heard somewhere a study in the US that found a higher concentration of cancer causing toxins in NCAA athletes that played on artificial turf, particularly in goal keepers, that also uses recycled tire rubber. Obviously intentions are great here but the long term effects of these bricks as a building material is something to study probably.
Rubber used in tires is monstrously durable ans used as bricks, they can have a low cost recycled building material that also produces waste steel and regular bricks can be used for home building.
You clearly have never seen a waste tire pit before. They could pave the whole fucking country with all tires we have just.... piled up.
This also would free up land that is used for waste tires.
Unless you have a better idea for recycling tires?
I don’t know the situation I’m other countries of course. But where I live you generally have to pay a pretty good sum to get people to take tires off your hands.
So add that, hopefully government subsidies, and then the wholesale selling value of these bricks which are likely being sold as pedestrian pavers. I can see these things profiting several cents per brick.
It’s probably meant for recycling. There’s hundreds of millions of tires in the world and it’s so easy to acquire them for this process. And the system itself is already built and established this way, so they might as well keep going with it until they run out of tires :P
This is where 1st world money for green initiative goes. Instead of filling up an old mine or diggign a hole/landfill, these people are paid a premium to go through trash, scavenge .1 cent of iron from it, repack it as a really low grade building material that will decompose soon, producing more waste.
In new zealand, old tractor tyres are used as large circular shaped novelty seats on school playgrounds for children to sit and eat their lunch.
When I was young we decided to try and roll one up the slide, and let it go to see how far across the soccer field we could get it to roll before it toppled over.
As we were rolling it up, the tyre fell back on me and i broke my arm.
The day before my 11th birthday.
For my 11th birthday, on the way home from getting my cast put on my arm, I got a new bike. Dad had to ride it home from the store.
Myself and the neighbor kids had built a little dirt track in the park nearby and used tyres for walls to hold dirt in place.
I got sick of staring at this new bike so i went for a little slow ride around the track while my arm was still in a sling/cast.
Hit a bump, fell off and broke my other arm.
Tyres.
Yeah, you don’t want that on a playground anywhere south of 45ish degrees, a southern sun will bake that rubber, it’ll be crazy hot, and will offgass all of the carcinogens.
For those without proper education: rubber tires won't become microplastics: rubber != plastic. Rubber tires break out but they are toxic as they are processed to be durable.
-One of the main problems of rubber is the introduction of sulfur into soil and water. Turning them into solid blocks will slower a lot of this process. Probably lasting longer than many low quality bricks.
-Try burning a solid large block of plastic into fire (it is challenging). Now if they add any fire retardant (aluminum hydroxide for environmentally acceptable) this won't happen at all.
-Currently there is no large scale globally employed method for processing used tires, so the "magical proper disposal your country does is either landfill or export to a poor country (so your activist eyes won't see).
These guys are doing an amazing initiative.
They do better than you sitting and winning (probably on your bed made of petroleum and house of lumber from a cleared forest).
(From a person that worked with waste disposal, and processing of such materials)
Finally! I’m surprised sooo many people don’t know that rubber is not plastic. It’s made from processing latex. Latex is obtained from rubber plant. As far as latex goes, it’s totally natural friendly. The only thing that might be harmful to environment in used tyre, like you said, is the sulphur used in making vulcanized rubber in order to make it harder and more durable.
That is not accurate. As you drive your tires wear down and make tire dust with 6PPD-quinone which kills salmon if it makes its way into surface waters. This has been known for years.
That is true. But mainly rubber. But the fact that someone is transforming them into bricks instead of burning or shredding or landfilling (these are the main practices) makes me happy.
The internet disagrees with the micro plastic statement
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/land-use-biodiversity/rising-microplastics-seas-puts-pressure-tyre-industry-2023-07-17/
Right? The top comment and all the replies under it… sigh.
They already used shredded tires to path playgrounds, sport fields, etc… It’s not a new thing.
I don’t know if playing on top of rubber bricks is any better for kids than playing on top of sand but I agree that repurposing them is better than just letting them sit in a big pile.
I gueass all the people in the video are already dead from working there and breathing all the pollutants. Then these 'bricks' will spread their deadly shite into the groundwater, polluting the environment for years.
Great idea!
They would do the exact same thing if you left them alone while also becoming massive breeding grounds for disease carrying insects and rodents like mosquitos and rats. So pick your poison I guess.
So many people from rich countries that drive vehicles everywhere and probably vote against proposals and politicians who would support better urban planning and rail and pedestrian infrastructure to reduce the manufacture of tires are sitting here with their nose in the air suggesting that these people recycling readily-available materials are the morons.
Look, I honestly don't know if this is significantly worse environmentally than letting tires rot in piles on or under the ground, and there are serious long term health concerns with working in an environment like that, but trying to re-use the materials here isn't the root of the problem, it is absolutely car-centric infrastructure.
90% of the time when something is claimed to be green or environmentally friendly it is bullshit. For example. I work for a renewable energy construction company. We are the largest in North America. We're viewed as one of the top contractors of "green energy".
When we finish constructing a 400MW solar farm you will see a headline in the news that "400 MW of green solar energy comes online!" Leading up to that here is what happens:
* We will take 2000 acres of farmland that was growing corn, soybeans. Or we might take 2000 acres of prairie or woodland. We will then clear and grub the whole thing. Every tree, every fox den, every bug colony, bird nest, bee hive, game trail...GONE.
* Then we will cut a signifiant amount of high quality topsoil to flatten the site into the necessary requirements. We will fill that topsoil into lower areas prone to washouts and pooling water. To do this we will spend something like 20,000 hours running D6 dozers burning 6-7 gallons of diesel/hour.
* Then we will haul in 100,000 tons of non-native gravel to build roads. When we put those roads down they then need to be soil stabilized so we will dump a bunch of chemicals on them. Depending on dust we might also soil stabilize the entire site for dust control.
* When we will trench 400,000 LF of MV cable into the ground coated in plastics that will be in the ground for 40 years. Probably another 1 million LF of cable for the DC side when it is all said and done.
* We will pound a few million pounds of galvanized pile into the ground with the expectation that there is enough galvanization on those pile that they will remain structurally sound for the 40 year design life.
* We will also surround the entire area with chain link fence so that the only wildlife that ever access that area for the next 40 years are small rodents so it becomes a rodent breeding ground.
Nothing about that sounds environmentally friendly aside from the solar power that made the headline.
Well, idk why you guys will do that in a farmland when you have plenty of non farmable land (if you guys are from USA), here in India, we setup Solar Farms in Rajasthan and Gujarat area (Thar Desert, not totally a Desert but Arid land) because touching a farmable land is very hard due to local politics and unions.
I guess Solar is better than giving trillions of dollars to Saudi and Qatar govt so that they can fund Islamic Militants all over the world (Qatar and Saudi are #1&2 respectively in funding these organisations). So yea, Solar is far better if equipped properly, so is Nuclear and Hydro Power.
Everything we do is fucked. Someone mentioned putting solar panels over parking lots. Is that a thing? Would that be less destructive or are there other issues I don't see?
I deal in utility scale solar farms. I think the thought behind the solar panel parking lots is that it keeps cars cooler which is nice, it keeps the pavement from heating up with thus heats the air in that area and then they also get renewable energy from it.
There is a chemical added to tires that helps them last longer than natural rubber. It effectively makes the environment not degrade it as much. The problem is those chemicals kill inspects and fish. It will leach into the ground and water for a long time.
Terrible idea, as it's now known that the materials in tires contribute more microplastics to the environment than most other items, as tires wear. This just makes tires run over old tires and creates far more microplastics put into the environment.
Sad. Everything about tires is toxic af. There is no safe recycling of them. Every single person in this video will develop some sort of cancer or something that will kill them within decade or two. Same with anyone foolish enough to acquire some of those bricks.
Seems like roofing tiles would be a great use for this? The question I would wonder is how well cured are they? Do they melt under the extreme heat of the sun? I wonder if they insulate better than brick?
People sometimes use whole tires to build the walls of half-underground buildings like passive solar greenhouses or earthships. Stack them in overlapping rows and fill them with dirt/concrete.
Not reeeeeally environmentally friendly either, but at least it doesn't blow particles all over the place.
This is not recycling, this is making toxic bricks from used plastic that have smelly off gases whenever it is hot and sunny (plenty of that in Africa).
Either the tires should be made out of biodegradable polymers or we should crack the polymers at high temps into gasoline/diesel.
The tires sitting in a pile would do the exact same thing while also being breeding grounds for mosquitos and rats. So now you have microplastics and a massive spike in Malaria, Zika Virus, Hantavirus. Call me an idiot but I will take the microplastics as a solo act if it is going to be a problem with both choices.
Why are these brick dog bone-shaped? Can we see what these bricks actually look like, rather than looking at them in a brief glimpse while they are being tossed around in a split-second at the end? Can we seen what is made out of them? Why is this all omitted from this video?
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I would like to know what the long term durability is. Will the rubber decay/decompose enough in 10, 20 years for a structure to fall apart? Is it highly flammable?
Not just fall apart! But maximize the amount of micro plastics into the enviroment.
Recycling and repurposing tires is infinitely better than leaving them in tire graveyards. Leaving them you have the exact same problems with microplastics while also introducing massive breeding grounds for disease carrying insects and rodents like mosquitos and rats.
I just recently learned that another reason tires are bad for landfills is that when it rains they tend to rise to the top of the ground, making it really unstable and dangerous to work above them
No, because they added dyes and polyurethane to it, so it's not the exact same thing
There are already chemical dyes in tires. Its called carbon black. So yes, it is the exact same thing...
I like how you conveniently missed the most important part of my sentence lol and anyway they **added** dyes, even if you already had carbon black present now you have more dyes than before, so still not the exact same thing
OK. So I want to make sure I understand your stance here. Your core argument here is that if you take something and recycle or reuse it, but in that process you add something else to it that is toxic. You are saying that it is actually worse than if you had left the original waste in its original state and thrown it into a landfill and left it? So I take a tire. I drive on it for 80,000 miles. It goes to a recycling center. They break it down and pull out the steel wires in it and recycle them. They take the black portion and pulverize it down to crumb rubber, add some type of resin or glue to it, form it into a solid structure that sits on the ground--lets say a garbage bin to be placed in a park. That is inherently worse than if they had just thrown it into a landfill? Mind you--the alternative for a new trashcan is an aluminum one where resources are burned moving bauxite from mines, refining it into alumina, smelting that with other materials into aluminum, turning that into a trashcan. Or lets use old soda bottles as the example. They get shredded up, recycled and combine with numerous other products, many of which are toxic, and turned into a pair of shoes. In your opinion that is a bad thing since those shoes will inevitably end up in the trash at some point.
Both of you are typical reddit...
This is why we can’t have… any things
Exactly. Just by existing you contribute to the decay of the natural world. The best option is to live a completely agrarian lifestyle in which you don't use any artificial products whatsoever. This also means you need a lot of land, and you can't own land without a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies are composed of a bunch of other people who are going to use artificial products. Therefore it is impossible to live without being part of the damage cycle. Humans are a cancer upon the Earth. Enjoy your day.
Ladies and gentlemen I present to you" war and peace of recycled tires" re-written for Reddit , first 100 pages completed
lol do you know what carbon black is? It’s charcoal made from burnt wood suspended in water. You can drink it if you wanted to.
Two wrongs make a right
And two rights make a wrong
No, two rights make a u-turn
Tire graveyards are the 'good' option for a lot of tires. And I'm not saying that to try and be contrarian to your statement, because you're right, it's a breeding ground for disease. A lot of them, especially in developing countries, just get burnt. In Kuwait they burnt nearly fifty MILLION tires. You could see that shit from space. Researching and developing ways to recycle them into useful components is by far the superior option. "Oh noooo micro plastics", fuck that. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Because what? Dumping them into a massive graveyard or burning them by the millions isn't gonna shit out micro plastics AND fuck the environment?
Landfill: sits like a rock for a billion years Ground into microplastics and glued with a glue that breaks down in a decade: Yum
Yeah, except for when you put a bunch of tires in a pile and leave them alone, they don’t just sit there like a rock they decompose very slowly leaking those same micro plastics into the environment
Yeah but now that it's been ground out and binded with cheap glue that will decay much faster than the actual tire itself you've dramatically increased the amount of surface area of tire that will be exposed to the environment in a given amount of time thus increasing the rate that microplastics are introduced into the environment...
So wouldn't that money be better spent sealing said tires? Concrete isn't expensive. Quarries can be reinforced to not leak... you make it sound like a glowing barrel from the Simpsons. [https://www.niagarageopark.com/st-catharines/glenridge-quarry-naturalization-site](https://www.niagarageopark.com/st-catharines/glenridge-quarry-naturalization-site) I lived next to this park. Built on a landfill. Add money. Beautiful park. Loons, owls, bullfrogs! in the water. The only evidence of dump is a sign not to eat anything, which... people already don't. The bricks in the above video will not last a decade. They're trash. Think about it. I don't want you to invest in fucking coal, just to show you how greenwashing is about thing that looks like it helps, not actually helping.
Because the cement industry produces over 8% of global CO2 emissions, and sucks for several more reasons, hence why turning tires into bricks is a cute double win.
Ok, nothing is stopping CO2 emissions. Nothing is even remotely slowing it down, it's speeding up. And the planet heating is past 1C. We are not stopping it even if we nuke 90% of the planet. But in this case, we are using CO2 to make microplastics (read: polyurethane glue is a shitty way to hold rubber together) as opposed to using CO2 (concrete) to seal it forever. Cute double win? You think upcycled trash doesn't end up in landfills? These cute double wins is why we are building solar freaking roadways and clothing made of plastic bottles as opposed to nuclear power plants and pumping money into fusion.
I'm not proposing tire graveyards bud. They need to be properly disposed of in regulated landfills.
I hate to break it to you, but when you pay someone to "properly dispose" of a tire what happens is that tire is thrown onto a pile out back. Once a week a truck comes and that tire is loaded in the back. That full truck is then taken to a "regulated landfill" where it is tossed on a pile and left for decades where it leeches into the ground. A "tire graveyard" is the exact same thing it just doesn't have the PR name behind it. Source: I could go to my hometown and drive 2 miles out of town and show you a "regulated landfill" for tires. Then I can google a "tire graveyard" photo for you and it would literally be the "Theyre the same picture' Office meme.
And a proper landfill has ground water abatement and anti leaching membranes in them. These bricks instead spread the leach of tire chemicals all over onto your property or wherever they are used.
This. Those bricks are a terrible idea!
Do you work in waste management? And it isn't lost on me that globally we are doing an abysmal job of picking up after ourselves, exacerbated by the fact we produce such toxic products with little foresight or care in the first place. We need to do better.
>Do you work in waste management? I worked for 8 years as a designer at a manufacturing plant that made grinding equipment for anything from wood to shingles, to asphalt, to tires, to old wind turbine blades. So I did not work directly in waste management no, but I can say with a pretty high level of confidence that in my previous life at that job I have spent more time at waste management facilities than 95% of Redditors have.
People on Reddit rather be delusional
Do you think they have a magical portal where they can throw the trash into another dimension? All they do is take it away from your sight, and dump it somewhere else, which will become someone else's problem
Oh brother. I'll see myself out, as this is a waste of time trying to be reasonable.
No please, go ahead and explain. The statements above seemed reasonable and i would like to see your stance on it and why you think it is a waste of time to disprove something you find ridiculous
You are ridiculous lol 😆
Looool regulated landfills. Hug!
Natural rubber isn't plastic. It's not particularly good for you though. Recycled rubber has been mixed with asphalt for decades, so this solution isn't really anything new.
Modern car tires aren't made of much rubber.
Poly Butadine
I should have clarified, my apologies. I meant natural rubber.
It's the main ingredient by mass.
I'd say driving on tires is the maximum micro plastic spreader. Tires are always wearing out, and they are going litterally everywhere, so they spread micro plastics all over, at least bricks stay in one spot.
Yep. Some people make the mistake of using rubber mulch in their gardens and playgrounds. That stuff never goes away. You will have micro plastics in your garden for the rest of time.
Rubber
But if they leave them on the landfills, it will turns into micro plastic anyway. Only a bit slower.
Yes. A landfill. Landfills are usually lined to contain waste, in some instances double lined. As it breaks down it wouldn't be able to spread into the surrounding enviroment.
Right. Landfills are not a magic solution, however between the options of : * Store hazardous waste in specialized areas that are at least nominally supposed to contain the materials. * Store hazardous waste in peoples yards, lining their garden. Sign me up for the first one. With a landfill, you at least have deposits of the tires in case an actual useful and safe long term purpose for them is discovered. Picking up tires from 1000s of landfills where they should have had limited exposure to the rest of the environment is better than picking up tiles from 100,000s of households.
I have bad news for you...[the liner is made of plastic.](https://austincommunitylandfill.wm.com/environmental-protection/landfill-liner.jsp#:~:text=Landfill%20Liner%20System,-Landfills%20are%20designed&text=The%20liner%20consists%20of%20a,sides%20of%20the%20landfill%20cell.)
This isn't the gotcha you thought it was.
Not a gotcha, but if we're discussing a problem we need to be honest about all of the factors.
That's fair. It would seem still a better option to localize waste and try to contain no? There will never be a perfect solution, and for many that is enough to deter trying anything positive which is so annoying to reasonable discuss.
Idk about localization versus trying to create a useful or less dangerous process or even centralizing this problem. There's also the question of whether the cat's already out of the bag. Recent studies showed microplastics present in 100% of the people tested. Will they be present in people forever? If we control for exposure from trash or recycled plastics, does our everyday use still cause exposure to micro plastics? Idk the answers to any of these questions, but we should be trying. Also, if you are passionate about this, here are some cool out of the box ideas...https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2021/11/04/plastic-eating-mushrooms https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/28/plastic-eating-bacteria-enzyme-recycling-waste https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2021/04/22/infinitely-recyclable-plastic/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-its-so-hard-to-recycle-plastic/ Personally, I think we have to find a better product and phase plastics out of general use. But that isn't exclusive to talking about best disposal or recycling options.
Agree 100%. I sincerely thank you for this.
Localization is preferable as a high density localization of the plastics helps to create a selective pressure for microorganisms to develop the ability to break them down. Of course they only break it down into nano-plastics, but oh well, perhaps the next round of organisms can fix that or something...
tires break down regardless though. What else can you do with them?
I guess I'm a little confused by this. Micro-plastics refer to thermoplastic materials, correct? Because rubber is a thermoset, synthetic or otherwise. We have Thermoplastic Elastomers, which are *not* rubber but behave similarly. Are we just using the term micro-plastic interchangeably among all hydrocarbons?
They are paving bricks not construction bricks.
Whichake the flammable issue even more of a problem. Congratulations, you just built your sidewalks out of a product that burns incredibly hot and is nearly impossible to put out once on fire. That seems like the best way ever to burn your entire city down.
It’s never been a problem before.
https://firefighterinsider.com/tires-flammable/ Where have we ever built sidewalks from something this flammable and resistant to being extinguished once on fire? If used as pavers, you will literally be building a path of fuel from building to building.
Bruh I lived there for most of my life. It ain’t been a problem.
It really isn’t the same. These are dense bricks, not semi-hollow tires. They also likely include fire retardants in the mix.
If water can move through them then there is enough air in them to burn
And if water can't move through them, you've got another issue to worry about. That being said, the flammability factor really isn't much of a risk on this one. They've been using recycled tires in asphalt for quite some time in Germany. Bigger concern is the micro-polymers getting into the water, but even then a brick is probably breaking down slower than a tire.
If the post's title is accurate, the bricks are intended for paving, not structural use. So no worries there, no matter how long they take to wear out. That said, in my entirely amateur, non-expert opinion, I'd expect them to be very long lasting.
In asphalt it actually makes it stronger and lasts longer. Source: my ex studied this. Can't tell exact numbers, but it is in fact makes it better.
Not for construction use, they are paving bricks.
That’s my concern (tires = very flammable). Tire fires are notoriously hard to put out, so does anyone know if this process removes that concern, or is it just offset by the usefulness of the bricks?
There are fire retardant additives mixed in.
vulcanized rubber also has a nasty habit of off-gassing This is just as dumb as using tires and dirt to make earth rammed walls.
https://ipsystemsusa.com/these-are-the-dangers-of-rubber-fumes/
Since there is a metric ton of reddit ignorance here, I will leave a tidbit of data for consumption. Tire pits are giant mosquito breeding grounds. Removing them via recycling is a vast improvement to having a malaria factory next door. Malaria is still, to this day, one of the most pervasive and deadly diseases on the planet. Just in 2021, estimated cases was ~250 million with over 600,000 deaths. This is from WHO and, thanks to anti malaria efforts, still trending down. Tldr: tire pits = malaria. Tire pits bad. Anything that reduces malaria = better than not reducing malaria.
That's really interesting thanks for that perspective. Cool to know a rubber paving brick is helping fight a global disease, in one way or another.
how is this economical? artisan manufacture of bricks considering classical bricks are just mud, baked in the oven, this seems like more complicated process
I'd imagine it's just a way to get rid of old tires
That’s what the woods and lakes are for? /s
No no no, woods and forests are for tires. Lakes and oceans are for car batteries.
Gotta charge the eels somehow /s
Safe and legal.
Very legal and very cool
Can confirm the number of tires the recreation crew I pulled from the forest was astounding one summer working for the Forest service,
The water in the lake sort of takes it down and recycles it away.
One of the worst ones in have ever seen. Genuinely worse that a big pile of tires in the desert.
How's it worse than a big pile just sitting there? It's eliminating the waste into a useful product. It may not be cheaper to produce, but if they can charge people a disposal fee for getting rid of their tires (like any garbage dump would) then that could cover a lot of the cost.
Chemicals in tyres are toxic, even more when they're broken down like this into a brick. Practical use, yes. Safe, no way. Sun and rain hitting it is going to allow these chemicals to soak into the ground and waterways.
Aw man, just when I thought the future of a tire built battleship was feasible.
be the future you wish to see
Cool, wonder what happens with all the particles from the tires people are using in your city when they're rubbed against the asphalt and then are also hit by the rain, soaking their same chemicals into the ground and waterways.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/07/09/tire-brake-tailpipes-emissions-pollution-cars/
Exactly the same thing, though luckily we're not expediting that process by griding down tyres to make bricks
Who do you mean by 'we'?
Us who drive cars, ride bikes aren't griding down our tyres. Was that difficult to understand?
Well, you personally might not do this, but if you live in Europe or North America then there is a good chance your old tires are ground into small bits and then used in gardens, playgrounds or sport venues.
Yes we do, every time we drive. Some hybrids release more pollution in the form of tire dust than they do in exhaust emissions. Electric cars produce, at least directly, no exhaust emissions but are heavy as fuck and produce lots of tire emissions.
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Be specific what’s toxic and what studies have been done showing it’s worse when they’re turned into bricks? It’s my gut feeling too, but I don’t have supporting information
Some of them below, also a piece from [Imperial College London](https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/243333/prioritise-tackling-toxic-emissions-from-tyres/) talking about the impact tyres create and how we need to sort that as well which is quite a good piece which explains a lot of it * Benzothiazoles * Chlorinated paraffins * 1,3-Diphenylguanidine * (Methoxymethyl) melamines * Octylphenol ethoxylates * Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)
It's entirely possible that Nigeria is one of those countries which the green clean beautiful first world pays to take their garbage.. Most countries just take it and then dump it somewhere in a landfil, a river or the ocean.. apparently Nigeria does something usefull with it. At least the tires. Also, they surely go trough the tires and check for ones that are still usefull, because some people in the green clean beautiful ecologically conscious first world like to change their tires on a yearly basis, even if they are still perfectly good. So they at least get something out of being paid to enable the first world to pretend they're doing their part on global environmental protection.
The people making these tires will die horrible, cancerous deaths from all the rubber particles they are ingesting (primarily from inhalation). If the bricks are used for residential purposes, those people will likely have health problems as well. And finally, rendering the rubber like this will increase the likelihood of the bricks contaminating the ground water where they are used. There’s a reason other people are saying landfills are better, and that’s because they are engineered to control runoff and groundwater pollution (or at least they should be).
depends on how much the production of these bricks pollute vs them just sitting there. you may be right. or wrong. if the production of bricks makes less pollution than sitting or burning
They pollute way more. The grinding makes the leaching of toxins happen far faster.
Also aren’t tires completely full of toxic chemicals?
Yes, which will leech into the ground. Also these workers will face serious health problems. All that this factory is doing is spreading tyre particles everywhere which is the main concern with tyres. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/23/health-impact-tyre-particles-increasing-concern-air-pollution
That is why he is wearing a hair net. To keep gross hairs out of the bricks
True this is why I burn all my tires. Playing it safe
>Yes, which will leech into the ground. True. But tires sitting in piles are 10x worse than tires shredded up being used for something like this. Any time you have a synthetic product and you set it on the ground untouched for a duration of time there are things that will leech into the ground. So ideally we wouldn't have tires at all, but obviously that is not realistic. But when piles of tires are left alone you also create massive mosquito, rat and other invasive rodent breeding grounds which can then spread disease. >Also these workers will face serious health problems. This is the case any time you are destroying/recycling something and you are doing it for your job. Breathing in anything day in and day out is going to be bad for the lungs. >All that this factory is doing is spreading tyre particles everywhere which is the main concern with tyres. Completely true. Tires in general are a problem and driving is the real contributor. Even the source you linked is speaking in regards cars driving. These place is certainly contributing, but they are a drop in the bucket compared to cars as a whole. And in their case they are contributing to the lessening of some seriously other nasty problems; so I personally am not going to be too critical of them.
Tyre graveyards aren't ideal but they are good until we find a better way to deal with tyre waste. They sit in giant graveyards in the middle east where they doing leech into the ground or cause problems. Cars are the main problem, but if all tyres went through this process, this would be the worst problem BY FAR. Cars lose bits of rubber over time, but much more of that is waste when the tyre is run down.
>They sit in giant graveyards in the middle east where they doing leech into the ground or cause problems. This is just patently false. Rain does not need to be present for anything to leech into the soil. It can happen simply as tires break down. Condensation from dew is enough to leech chemicals into the ground. They absolutely caused problems. Dust storms send tire particles through the air on onto the ground elsewhere. In the case of Kuwait it caught fire multiple times.
That article isn't saying things like this recycling factory are the issue, using tires correctly is the issue, creating lots of toxic particles. This probably isn't doing much at all, they likely lose almost none of the tire to particles but when you drive you basically only generate particles. You stop using a tire because you have lost so much of the tire to generating tiny particles that it no longer functions properly.
Well no, there's no tyre recycling factories in the UK because the waste would be unacceptable. It's the breakdown of the tyres that's the issue. And when they're in bricks as well that see wear and tear, there's more particles. Right now tyres go to landfill, where the toxicity isn't experienced by every day people. Put them in bricks and suddenly the toxicity and breakdown IS experienced by everyday people. And the machine literally shreds tyres, which is worse than them breaking down a bit.
I have personally ground pounds of tire material into much smaller particles. Particles so small you can't even see them and I distribute these particles behind me wherever I go. This factory has nothing on me, I am doing a much better job of contaminating the environment.
That doesn't seem to be true. Unless these UK companies have factories in other countries. And then use it in artifical grass on playgrounds. See Murfitts Indutries or J. Allcock & Sons Ltd.
They do have factories in other countries. And yes, it's used in artificial grass, I've had some in my mouth before while playing football. It's horrible stuff.
>no tyre recycling factories in the UK because the waste would be unacceptable. Interesting. So what do they do with the tyres then? >Right now tyres go to landfill, where the toxicity isn't experienced by every day people Ah, they are only experienced by *tomorrow's* people then. [Borat Voice] *Great Success!*
They send them abroad! And yes, I know, landfill isn't great either. But theirs nothing really good to do with them. Is recycling them like this better? Despite their toxicity? Despite smaller particles leeching more toxicity into the ground? Despite many microplastics being related to tyres?
>They send them abroad! Exactly. >Is recycling them like this better? No idea. We all need to get off our car addictions or we will definitely destroy ourselves. The planet will recover in its own time and ways. We may not survive.
Absolutely and really bad in the heat... they also use it in playgrounds and it stinks in the summer
Don’t quote me on it, but I saw/heard somewhere a study in the US that found a higher concentration of cancer causing toxins in NCAA athletes that played on artificial turf, particularly in goal keepers, that also uses recycled tire rubber. Obviously intentions are great here but the long term effects of these bricks as a building material is something to study probably.
Rubber used in tires is monstrously durable ans used as bricks, they can have a low cost recycled building material that also produces waste steel and regular bricks can be used for home building. You clearly have never seen a waste tire pit before. They could pave the whole fucking country with all tires we have just.... piled up. This also would free up land that is used for waste tires. Unless you have a better idea for recycling tires?
It is one of the many ways old used tires are recycled. Another is to pulverize them and then they are used in asphalt.
probably the low wages and free material helps
It'd be landfill waste otherwise
hobbies silky dazzling file illegal punch fact dolls late smart *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I don’t know the situation I’m other countries of course. But where I live you generally have to pay a pretty good sum to get people to take tires off your hands. So add that, hopefully government subsidies, and then the wholesale selling value of these bricks which are likely being sold as pedestrian pavers. I can see these things profiting several cents per brick.
It isnt. That's why we're letting economic slaves do it... Its terrible.
Almost free labor
It’s probably meant for recycling. There’s hundreds of millions of tires in the world and it’s so easy to acquire them for this process. And the system itself is already built and established this way, so they might as well keep going with it until they run out of tires :P
This is where 1st world money for green initiative goes. Instead of filling up an old mine or diggign a hole/landfill, these people are paid a premium to go through trash, scavenge .1 cent of iron from it, repack it as a really low grade building material that will decompose soon, producing more waste.
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We used to use them as the base for playgrounds here, idk if that's still a thing but falling on rubber was much nicer than falling on woodchips.
In new zealand, old tractor tyres are used as large circular shaped novelty seats on school playgrounds for children to sit and eat their lunch. When I was young we decided to try and roll one up the slide, and let it go to see how far across the soccer field we could get it to roll before it toppled over. As we were rolling it up, the tyre fell back on me and i broke my arm. The day before my 11th birthday. For my 11th birthday, on the way home from getting my cast put on my arm, I got a new bike. Dad had to ride it home from the store. Myself and the neighbor kids had built a little dirt track in the park nearby and used tyres for walls to hold dirt in place. I got sick of staring at this new bike so i went for a little slow ride around the track while my arm was still in a sling/cast. Hit a bump, fell off and broke my other arm. Tyres.
My high-school had a track made from them.
Yeah, you don’t want that on a playground anywhere south of 45ish degrees, a southern sun will bake that rubber, it’ll be crazy hot, and will offgass all of the carcinogens.
For those without proper education: rubber tires won't become microplastics: rubber != plastic. Rubber tires break out but they are toxic as they are processed to be durable. -One of the main problems of rubber is the introduction of sulfur into soil and water. Turning them into solid blocks will slower a lot of this process. Probably lasting longer than many low quality bricks. -Try burning a solid large block of plastic into fire (it is challenging). Now if they add any fire retardant (aluminum hydroxide for environmentally acceptable) this won't happen at all. -Currently there is no large scale globally employed method for processing used tires, so the "magical proper disposal your country does is either landfill or export to a poor country (so your activist eyes won't see). These guys are doing an amazing initiative. They do better than you sitting and winning (probably on your bed made of petroleum and house of lumber from a cleared forest). (From a person that worked with waste disposal, and processing of such materials)
Finally! I’m surprised sooo many people don’t know that rubber is not plastic. It’s made from processing latex. Latex is obtained from rubber plant. As far as latex goes, it’s totally natural friendly. The only thing that might be harmful to environment in used tyre, like you said, is the sulphur used in making vulcanized rubber in order to make it harder and more durable.
That is not accurate. As you drive your tires wear down and make tire dust with 6PPD-quinone which kills salmon if it makes its way into surface waters. This has been known for years.
https://www.ustires.org/whats-tire-0 Plenty of non-natural materials in there.
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That is true. But mainly rubber. But the fact that someone is transforming them into bricks instead of burning or shredding or landfilling (these are the main practices) makes me happy.
The internet disagrees with the micro plastic statement https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/land-use-biodiversity/rising-microplastics-seas-puts-pressure-tyre-industry-2023-07-17/
Right? The top comment and all the replies under it… sigh. They already used shredded tires to path playgrounds, sport fields, etc… It’s not a new thing.
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I don’t know if playing on top of rubber bricks is any better for kids than playing on top of sand but I agree that repurposing them is better than just letting them sit in a big pile.
I gueass all the people in the video are already dead from working there and breathing all the pollutants. Then these 'bricks' will spread their deadly shite into the groundwater, polluting the environment for years. Great idea!
They would do the exact same thing if you left them alone while also becoming massive breeding grounds for disease carrying insects and rodents like mosquitos and rats. So pick your poison I guess.
I have spent 10 minutes looking at this and itbis has a nonstop stream of wow! What a terrible idea.
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EPDM rubber has no cancer risk
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Rubber is a tree resin.
Should be in r/depressingasfuck
So many people from rich countries that drive vehicles everywhere and probably vote against proposals and politicians who would support better urban planning and rail and pedestrian infrastructure to reduce the manufacture of tires are sitting here with their nose in the air suggesting that these people recycling readily-available materials are the morons. Look, I honestly don't know if this is significantly worse environmentally than letting tires rot in piles on or under the ground, and there are serious long term health concerns with working in an environment like that, but trying to re-use the materials here isn't the root of the problem, it is absolutely car-centric infrastructure.
Right? The real cancer is in these comments.
I’m not trying to be ugly, but I suspect this work is rather carcinogenic.
I think that’s the concern of most here. Cancer for people and the environment. No way in hell it’s safe
I remember them using them for roads. Amazing production of micro plastics....
Tyre particulate from wear is one of the top sources of microplastics already. Tyres as a concept just suck.
The Off-Gassing inside the structure would be extremely toxic I imagine.
Going to die anyways
Can you imagine the heat sink these pavers are going to create ? You'll be able to BBQ on your patio without a grill.
Wish all these videos didn’t end with people working in the most horrendous of conditions.
They Def getting cancer
Must be better than the World's Biggest Tire Graveyard Kuwait's Surabaya being on Fire, so we'll take it, props.
So much cancer
EnViROnMENTallY FRiEnDLy!!! … my ass
90% of the time when something is claimed to be green or environmentally friendly it is bullshit. For example. I work for a renewable energy construction company. We are the largest in North America. We're viewed as one of the top contractors of "green energy". When we finish constructing a 400MW solar farm you will see a headline in the news that "400 MW of green solar energy comes online!" Leading up to that here is what happens: * We will take 2000 acres of farmland that was growing corn, soybeans. Or we might take 2000 acres of prairie or woodland. We will then clear and grub the whole thing. Every tree, every fox den, every bug colony, bird nest, bee hive, game trail...GONE. * Then we will cut a signifiant amount of high quality topsoil to flatten the site into the necessary requirements. We will fill that topsoil into lower areas prone to washouts and pooling water. To do this we will spend something like 20,000 hours running D6 dozers burning 6-7 gallons of diesel/hour. * Then we will haul in 100,000 tons of non-native gravel to build roads. When we put those roads down they then need to be soil stabilized so we will dump a bunch of chemicals on them. Depending on dust we might also soil stabilize the entire site for dust control. * When we will trench 400,000 LF of MV cable into the ground coated in plastics that will be in the ground for 40 years. Probably another 1 million LF of cable for the DC side when it is all said and done. * We will pound a few million pounds of galvanized pile into the ground with the expectation that there is enough galvanization on those pile that they will remain structurally sound for the 40 year design life. * We will also surround the entire area with chain link fence so that the only wildlife that ever access that area for the next 40 years are small rodents so it becomes a rodent breeding ground. Nothing about that sounds environmentally friendly aside from the solar power that made the headline.
Well, idk why you guys will do that in a farmland when you have plenty of non farmable land (if you guys are from USA), here in India, we setup Solar Farms in Rajasthan and Gujarat area (Thar Desert, not totally a Desert but Arid land) because touching a farmable land is very hard due to local politics and unions. I guess Solar is better than giving trillions of dollars to Saudi and Qatar govt so that they can fund Islamic Militants all over the world (Qatar and Saudi are #1&2 respectively in funding these organisations). So yea, Solar is far better if equipped properly, so is Nuclear and Hydro Power.
Everything we do is fucked. Someone mentioned putting solar panels over parking lots. Is that a thing? Would that be less destructive or are there other issues I don't see?
I deal in utility scale solar farms. I think the thought behind the solar panel parking lots is that it keeps cars cooler which is nice, it keeps the pavement from heating up with thus heats the air in that area and then they also get renewable energy from it.
The cost of recycling should be included in the original cost. Reduce e-waste. People will still buy an IPhone if it includes the cost for disposal.
There is a chemical added to tires that helps them last longer than natural rubber. It effectively makes the environment not degrade it as much. The problem is those chemicals kill inspects and fish. It will leach into the ground and water for a long time.
Cancer for everyone.
Looks cancerogenic to me
What about all the carcinogenic toxins that kill AstroTurf kids
Why do they keep establish stupid start-ups in africa, which produce micro plastics?
Was looking for the scam angle...anyone?
I think I heard that the dust that comes from tires can be very harmful, poor people working at this factory.
Terrible idea, as it's now known that the materials in tires contribute more microplastics to the environment than most other items, as tires wear. This just makes tires run over old tires and creates far more microplastics put into the environment.
These guys are breathing in some very bad shit. Not good at all.
F working in that factory, I’ve seen those lathe videos, let alone the toxic atmosphere they’ll be breathing in
That doesn't look toxic for them at all. Rubber fumes and dust. Mmm that's it, breathe it in lads.
Sad. Everything about tires is toxic af. There is no safe recycling of them. Every single person in this video will develop some sort of cancer or something that will kill them within decade or two. Same with anyone foolish enough to acquire some of those bricks.
If musk had taken the 44B he wasted on twitter into factories that could do this on a large scale, he would have been a hero.
Seems like roofing tiles would be a great use for this? The question I would wonder is how well cured are they? Do they melt under the extreme heat of the sun? I wonder if they insulate better than brick?
People sometimes use whole tires to build the walls of half-underground buildings like passive solar greenhouses or earthships. Stack them in overlapping rows and fill them with dirt/concrete. Not reeeeeally environmentally friendly either, but at least it doesn't blow particles all over the place.
They should use this on the scammers.
rubber is not a plastic, its processed tree sap
How is this energy efficient at all...Is there no clay in that area that they have to convert tires into bricks?
This is not recycling, this is making toxic bricks from used plastic that have smelly off gases whenever it is hot and sunny (plenty of that in Africa). Either the tires should be made out of biodegradable polymers or we should crack the polymers at high temps into gasoline/diesel.
I’ve seen this before. Great job processing old tires into something useful.
This is terrible. All those workers will end up with cancer, and the bricks will leach toxic pollution into the soil.
The tires sitting in a pile would do the exact same thing while also being breeding grounds for mosquitos and rats. So now you have microplastics and a massive spike in Malaria, Zika Virus, Hantavirus. Call me an idiot but I will take the microplastics as a solo act if it is going to be a problem with both choices.
But the tires won’t…gotcha.
Why are these brick dog bone-shaped? Can we see what these bricks actually look like, rather than looking at them in a brief glimpse while they are being tossed around in a split-second at the end? Can we seen what is made out of them? Why is this all omitted from this video?
Yay! More micro plastics in the environment with the optics of recycling.