Waste reduction fast facts: Tires and rubber
Garbage and recycling › Resources for schools › Fast facts about waste reduction › Tires and rubber
This resource is not exhaustive nor is it all-inclusive, but can be cited and dated from primary and secondary sources. To find out more about the methodology or accuracy, contact the referenced source.
Metro does not validate nor endorse any of these facts.
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It takes seven gallons of crude oil to produce one car tire. –Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc., “Rubber Recycling Rolls Along,” May 2000
www.gristmagazine.com/grist/counter/counter101300.stm -
It takes 3.6 billion gallons of crude oil to produce tires for all of the cars in the U.S. –Calculated considering there were 129,749,000 passenger cars
registered in the U.S. in 1997, four tires per car and seven gallons of
crude oil per tire.
www.gristmagazine.com/grist/counter/counter101300.stm -
Synthetic rubber accounts for about 60 percent of the total
worldwide consumption of rubber and is derived from oil, whereas the
remaining 40 percent is naturally derived from the rubber tree. –International Rubber Study Group, “Rubber in a Nutshell (revised),” 2000
www.rubberstudy.com/Pubs.htm -
It takes five to eight years for a rubber tree to mature to
the girth, at which it can be tapped and its economic life will then be
20 to 30 years. –International Rubber Study Group, “Rubber in a Nutshell (revised),” 2000
www.rubberstudy.com/Pubs.htm - Each year, motorists in the U.S. generate about 1 scrap tire for every man, woman and child in the country. –Waste News, Jim Johnson, “An Active Retirement,” April 4, 2002
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Approximately 290 million scrap tires were generated in 2003. –Environmental Protection Agency, “Management of Scrap Tires,” Last Updated April, 2005 (Accessed 8/05)
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/tires/basic.htm -
There are at least 275 million scrap tires in stockpiles in the U.S. –Environmental Protection Agency, “Management of Scrap Tires,” Last Updated April, 2005 (Accessed 8/05)
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/tires/basic.htm -
The tire industry saw a 2.6 percent growth in 2002 and a
slight increase of 0.6 percent over 2002 and 2003. The industry
anticipates a growth rate of over 4 percent in 2003. –Environmental Protection Agency, “Profile of the Rubber and Plastic Industry, 2nd Edition,” EPA/310-R-05-003, February 2005
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/publications/assistance/sectors/notebooks/rubplasn.pdf -
In 2003, close to 45 percent of scrap tires were used for fuel in the U.S. Almost 20 percent were
recycled or used in civil engineering projects and almost 8 percent
were converted into ground rubber and recycled into products. The remainder were used in rubber-modified asphalt paving material, exported for reuse and other miscellaneous applications. –Environmental Protection Agency, “Management of Scrap Tires, Basic Information” Last Updated April, 2005 (Accessed 8/05)
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/tires/basic.htm -
The use of scrap tires for fuel has increased from 24.5
million tires in 1990 to 115 million tires in 2001. Using ground
rubber as an additive to asphalt paving has increased from 3 million
tires in 1994 to 12 million tires in 2001. –Environmental Protection Agency, “Profile of the Rubber and Plastic Industry, 2nd Edition,” EPA/310-R-05-003, February 2005
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/publications/assistance/sectors/notebooks/rubplasn.pdf -
About 27 million scrap tires (9.3% of the total) are estimated to be disposed of in landfills in the U.S. –Environmental Protection Agency, “Management of Scrap Tires, Basic Information” Last Updated April, 2005 (Accessed 8/05)
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/tires/basic.htm -
More than two-thirds of Oregon’s scrap tires are landfilled. –The Task Force on Tire Recycling, Report to the 71st Oregon Legislative Assembly and Gov. John Kitzhaber, Oct. 2002
www.leg.state.or.us/comm/commsrvs/int_tire_finalreport.htm -
Sixty percent of tires disposed in Oregon landfills are from out-of-state (primarily Washington and Idaho). –The Task Force on Tire Recycling, Report to the 71st Oregon Legislative Assembly and Gov. John Kitzhaber, Oct. 2002
www.leg.state.or.us/comm/commsrvs/int_tire_finalreport.htm - In 2001, 38 states banned the landfilling of whole tires, and 11 states banned all scrap tires from landfills. In addition, 33 states charged a minimal scrap tire fee to consumers who were replacing used tires with new tires. –Resource Recycling, “Scrap tires pave the way,” Serji Amirkhanian, September 2004; Source: Rubber Manufacturing Association, 2003
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Scrap tires pose three environmental threats: they are an
extremely difficult to extinguish fire hazard; they trap rainwater
which can breed mosquitos that spread diseases; and they are bulky,
virtually indestructible hazards that often work their way back up to
the surface of landfills after burial. –Environmental Protection Agency, “Profile of the Rubber and Plastic Industry, 2nd Edition,” EPA/310-R-05-003, February 2005
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/publications/assistance/sectors/notebooks/rubplasn.pdf -
In 2001, approximately 33 million passenger and light duty truck tires were retreads. –Environmental Protection Agency, “Profile of the Rubber and Plastic Industry, 2nd Edition,” EPA/310-R-05-003, February 2005
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/publications/assistance/sectors/notebooks/rubplasn.pdf -
If the markets could be developed so that all suitable
passenger and light truck tires were retreaded, the number of scrap
tires generated per year would be reduced by almost 10 percent. –Environmental Protection Agency, “Profile of the Rubber and Plastic Industry, 2nd Edition,” EPA/310-R-05-003, February 2005
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/publications/assistance/sectors/notebooks/rubplasn.pdf -
Many scrap tires are exported to foreign countries to be
reused as retreads. As many as 20 percent of tires sold in Mexico are
imported as used tires from the U.S. and then retreaded for reuse. –Environmental Protection Agency, “Management of Scrap Tires, Basic Information” Last Updated April, 2005 (Accessed 8/05)
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/tires/basic.htm -
In 2001, it was estimated that the United States generated
approximately 300 million scrap tires. Approximately 80 percent of
these tires were recycled, reused, or recovered for fuel. This
represents a 50 percent increase of scrap tire use since 1994, and more
than a seven-fold increase since 1990. –Environmental Protection Agency, “Profile of the Rubber and Plastic Industry, 2nd Edition,” EPA/310-R-05-003, February 2005
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/publications/assistance/sectors/notebooks/rubplasn.pdf -
In 2003, markets for scrap tires consumed 80.4 percent of
the 290 million tires generated annually, up from 24.5 percent in 1990. –Environmental Protection Agency, “Management of Scrap Tires, Basic Information” Last Updated April, 2005 (Accessed 8/05)
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/tires/basic.htm -
Oregon’s scrap tire recovery rate was higher than the
national average in the early 1990s (between 96-99 percent) but fell to
32 percent in 2000 as a result of the decline in tire-derived fuel
markets. –The Task Force on Tire Recycling, Report to the Seventy-first Oregon Legislative Assembly and Gov. John Kitzhaber, October 2002
www.leg.state.or.us/comm/commsrvs/int_tire_finalreport.htm - Forty percent of tires recycled or recovered in Oregon are from out-of-state. –The Task Force on Tire Recycling, Report to the 71st Oregon Legislative Assembly and Gov. John Kitzhaber, Oct. 2002
www.leg.state.or.us/comm/commsrvs/int_tire_finalreport.htm