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Asian seen as big market for rubber from used tyres

PHUKET: Millions of used tyres are posing a major environmental headache around Asia but industry experts said on Friday there was gold in the rubber extracted from them.

They told a two-day International Rubber Forum which ended on Friday that reclaiming rubber from the tyres for re-use in other products was a growing business in the United States, Europe and in parts of the developing world.

In Asia, however, the recycling of used tyres had been limited mainly to India and China but there was scope for increased activities elsewhere in the region, they said.

Wilma Dierkes, representative of Vredestein Rubber Recycling based in the Dutch town of Maastricht said the disposal of used tyres was a major environmental problem.

She told the forum that growing awareness of the damage caused by rubber tyre dumping and burning, coupled with a taste for recycled products aided reclamation industries.

"There are good prospects for recycling rubber from tyres in the next few years," she added.

The forum was organised by the International Rubber Study Group (IRSG) and attended by 130 delegates from 20 countries.

According to IRSG estimates, there are up to four billion used tyres in dumps around the world. Durable used tyres take up to 80 years to decompose and emit environmentally unfriendly toxic fumes if burnt in open fires.

When used and dumped, tyres are a wasted natural resource, take up space and are good breeding grounds for mosquitoes, rodents and snakes, the experts said.

Besides recycling their rubber, used tyres are also widely seen as an alternative burning fuel in cement factories and in steam and electricity power plants.

In the United States, about 250 million scrap tyres are dumped annually when they could yield 2.1 million tonnes of ground rubber, said T. Cole, an official of the Washington-based Rubber Manufacturers Association.

Recycled rubber is already being used in the making of retreaded tyres, tubes, sewage pipes, footwear and in playgrounds.

A major problem in extracting rubber from used tyres is the fact that they also contain steel and fabric. This has been worsened by the shift to higher performance and more durable products by tyre-makers, the experts said.

R.V. Gandhi of Bombay-based Gujarat Reclaim and Rubber Products said competitive prices of synthetic rubber and its widespread use had discouraged many Western industrialists from more actively reclaiming rubber from used tyres.

"The use of reclaimed rubber is not so widespread because synthetic rubber is cheaper in the West, but not for India or for other developing countries," he said.

This had made Brazil, India and China big extractors of rubber to feed industries and meet strong domestic demand for rubber products, he said.

"Museums preserve our past. Recycling preserves the future," said Gandhi.-Reuter