Recycling and reuses of scrap tires for waste minimization: Fid-Bau Portal

Recycling and reuses of scrap tires for waste minimization

Gu, Roy R.

Scrap tires are a high-profile waste material. There are serious concerns over the ever-mounting scrap tire problem. A need exists for increasing available reuse measures to their full potential and developing new and feasible scrap tire reuse alternatives. The growing interest in utilizing waste materials in engineering applications has opened the possibility of constructing hydraulic structures with scrap tires. Applications of scrap tires in hydraulic engineering benefits the environment by reducing the waste, yet one may ask whether scrap tires leach compounds that may adversely affect the environment. Before uses of scrap tires in hydraulic engineering practices, it is important to consider and evaluate any possible environmental implications, for example, potential surface water pollution, and groundwater and soil contamination. This paper focuses on state-of-the-knowledge about the reuses of scrap tires in hydraulic engineering projects and discusses existing and new utilization methods for potential source reduction, which may be effective in solving the waste tire problem. In this paper, the problems associated with scrap tires are identified, the physical and chemical properties of tire material are summarized, existing scrap tire applications in hydraulic engineering are reviewed, new applications are developed and analyzed, technical and economic feasibilities are investigated, and environmental impact is assessed.