As living conditions improve day by day, more and more families own cars as a means of transportation. At the same time, tens of millions of cars are scrapped every year, along with a large number of discarded car tires. We all know that car tires are rubber products, similar to plastics. If they are discarded in nature and are difficult to degrade, they will cause huge environmental pollution, and they will take up too much space for storage and accumulation. So how to deal with so many discarded tires?
The dangers of waste tires
As the first country to industrialize, the United States has a car population that is basically the same as its population. It has close to 300 million cars. The huge number of cars will inevitably lead to a large number of waste tires, which are already in a saturated state. The number has reached As many as 3 billion. These discarded tires are also tormenting the United States.
Tires do bring great convenience to people when used normally, and they play an important role in greatly reducing our travel time. But when the tires are scrapped after use, how to deal with them is a headache. Discarded and accumulated tires are not only a pile of discarded junk, they are also extremely polluting. Because rubber tires are exposed to wind, sun, and rain for a long time outdoors, a large number of rubber particles enter the nature. Just like plastic particles, we cannot see them with the naked eye, but they are passed through the ecosystem as they circulate. , entering water sources, crops and animals, causing damage to ecological stability. As the top of the food chain, we humans naturally cannot escape. According to the principle of enrichment, we may become the creatures that eat the most rubber particles.
Although rubber itself is non-toxic, a large number of toxic additives are added to the tires during the production process. When a tire is ignited, it will emit a strong pungent smell, which is the toxic gas released by the burning of toxic substances inside. Just like in daily life, if a car suddenly brakes unexpectedly, it will leave an obvious brake mark on the ground, accompanied by a pungent odor. This is due to the intense friction between the tire and the ground to generate heat, causing the tire to release toxic substance. For example, sulfur, chlorine, fluorine, benzene ring , etc. However, a large number of discarded tires in the United States are early industrial products. Their quality is far from modern products and they are more polluting.
How to dispose of old tires
The United States began to dispose of tires directly into the sea, which also caused the United States to reap the consequences. Because there are so many, within a few years, the seawater will corrode, and a large amount of toxic substances will be released and integrated into the surrounding sea areas, causing serious pollution, and all kinds of marine life will also suffer disaster. Of course, Americans also have to pay for their mistakes. Spending huge sums of money to hire workers to deal with tires on the seabed is really not worth the gain. Later, an engineer came up with a solution, which was to use discarded tires to pave roads.
On the one hand, tires have strong elasticity, which can solve the problem of thermal expansion and contraction under sun exposure on the road; on the other hand, tires have strong toughness and are not easy to break when heavy vehicles pass by. In addition, by using these discarded tires, the use of asphalt tires is greatly reduced, which not only saves costs, but also reduces environmental pollution. Moreover, adding tires inside also makes the paved road more sound-absorbing, which can reduce a certain amount of noise.
Old tires can strengthen roads, making them last twice as long as ordinary asphalt
Australian researchers have found that adding rubber from old tires to asphalt paved roads gives them extra protection from the sun and makes them last twice as long before they crack. We know that after a while our roads will always develop potholes that need repairing, but changing the mix of road materials can make them last longer.
We know that under the sun's exposure during the day, the road temperature rises very quickly. If you touch it with your hands, you may be burned. In hot weather, the road temperature may reach more than 70 degrees.When the temperature is too high, the road is prone to bursting due to thermal expansion and contraction. Adding tire rubber crumbs can resist the attack of the sun's rays and reinforce the road in an environmentally friendly way. It can also be used in concrete to make it stronger. and more heat-resistant effects. Of course, the proportion of tire rubber added does not mean that the more the better. Researchers found that the proportion of rubber between 18% and 22% is relatively balanced and more resistant to ultraviolet aging.
Since tires can be used to pave roads, why don’t we see this method used in our country?
The main reason is that the current stock of used tires in our country is not as large as that in the United States, and the number is not enough to support the large-scale construction of roads. On the one hand, after the cars are abandoned, the tires are recycled and reused, and after being refurbished, they continue to be used as second-hand tires. Used, the waste recycling rate reaches 60%. There is also the option of cutting them into pieces and then remanufacturing them to create new tires.
Those tires that have reached the point where they can no longer be reused will be used to pave rubber roads. However, the road paving in our country is different. The entire tire is not laid under the road, but is broken into pieces and followed by asphalt and gravel. The materials are mixed together to lay the road.
Of course, even if we use discarded tires in this way, it seems that the tire rubber is processed, but in fact it is just equivalent to storing the rubber in a different place, and there is no real degradation. The rubber still exists on the earth. And it will be around for a long time. As time goes by, the number of tires is increasing. After all, it is not a foolproof solution. How to recycle or develop degradation methods can truly solve the problem of rubber pollution.
