Promoting the use of discarded pneumatic rubber tyres to upgrade the ecology of our environment

Antony Santiago

The one page advertisement on recycling rubber tyres (New Straits Times dated July 10, 2007) carried the message that an estimated one billion tyres per year had nowhere to go. The advertisement also says that seven billion discarded rubber tyres are at present available for recycling by a patented process of delinking the chemical bonds that raw latex undergoes in the tyre manufacturing process. The chemicals used in the process are not mentioned but rumor has it that the chemicals used are water soluble and will damage aquatic life. This could be why developed nations are not setting up factories for recycling tyres even though they produce the greatest number of discarded tyres and can use the science and technology of delinking to do the same recycling.

More recently, an article in the New Straits Times dated December 13, 2007 reported that a German engineering company by the name of Intec Micro Powder AG had concluded a memorandum of understanding with a newly formed company called Intec Malaysia Sdn Bhd to recycle tyres. Intec Micro develops designs special machinery and equipment in the field of industrial tyre recycling. The company uses a deep cooling technique to cool the tyres to minus 195.8 degrees C which makes the vulcanized rubber brittle causing it to be pulverized more easily to generate rubber powder which is then used to .

These two technical processes of recycling discarded tyres have not been assessed as to their impact on the environment or whether they are environmentally friendly.

Are there any environmentally sound solutions to take care of the problem of the growing mounds, hills and mountains of discarded tyres?

The writer would like to propose eco-friendly methods of using discarded tyres based on successful experiments in using discarded tyres that are cut and assembled before using them as improvised containers for growing plants and for ecocycling wastes.

The writer who is a researcher in plant science, plant breeding and agriculture and completed his PhD at the University of Singapore in 1974 recalls observing village folk on their own initiative and common sense filling discarded tyres with earth and growing garden plants in them, under crops of fruit trees. Following their example he took the opportunity to conduct research in his home garden in Kuala Lumpur and found to his dismay that the soil in the tyres got water logged and too wet for plants to flourish. At about the same time he observed a tyre technician cut the belly part of the tyre with relative ease using a kitchen knife soaked in water which he then sold to cobblers who used them for mending the soles of shoes which had worn out.

This observation helped the writer to successfully use cut tyres to grow plants and to compost soil. Plants that grew well using this technique included vegetables, ornamental and herbaceous plants, shrubs, climbers and small trees such as papayas, tapioca and small ornamental palms.

His experiments were very successful and encouraged him to write articles in the New Straits Times under a personal column called Green Acres as well as in the Agroforestry Journal, a publication of the Centre for Agroforestry based in Nairobi, Kenya. The positive feedback from readers in other parts of the world suggested that the writer was on the right track.

The writer moved his residence to Petaling Jaya and is continuing his experiments there with discarded tyres donated by Dunlop Industries Malaysia and is getting satisfactory results as before.

Today after more than 30 years experience of growing plants in tyres the writer is confident that the ecocycling of tyres by growing plants in them has a great future in improving the ecology of our planet and would like to promote it as a garden culture of modern civilization. There are many other possibilities to conduct experiments on the use of cut parts of discarded tyres which include road barriers filled with ornamental plants and the like. It is hoped that the setting up of an ecocyling garden will encourage researchers in gardening and landscaping around the world to experiment and implement successful applications of using discarded tyres for useful purposes.

Growing plants in improvised containers of discarded rubber tyres will help avoid the mistake of recycling them using environmentally harmful means and solve the problem of the mounting number of discarded pneumatic tyres which in the humid tropics holds rain water and provides breeding grounds for a wide range of species of disease carrying mosquitoes. There is no need to recycle discarded tyres as suggested in the advertisement which could potentially pollute the waterways of our environment but instead ecocyle them as suggested. We should encourage the development of new tyre cutting methods and produce a variety of tyre parts for a variety of uses to improve our natural environment and produce a cultured landscape and garden environment for all of us to enjoy for the present and the future.