Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This page may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that I have recommended. There is no additional cost to you whatsoever.
Our visitor, Bill Niaura, director of Sustainable Materials and Circular Economy on the Bridgestone Americas Technology Center, is working to create a round financial system in tires. Tokyo-based Bridgestone, the world’s largest tire firm based mostly on income, just lately introduced a brand new partnership with carbon recycling agency LanzaTech to introduce a expertise that gasifies — breaks down — the rubber in tires to feed to micro organism. The course of produces ethanol, a gasoline that will also be used to make plastic and different merchandise. They are additionally working to extract a precursor chemical to be used in making new rubber and, by extension, new tires. Bill additionally explains how Bridgestone is exploring new sources of pure rubber, together with the desert plant guayule that the corporate just lately launched in racing tires.
Even as the auto modifications and turns into electrical, some issues will keep the identical. Tires and the waste related to them will proceed to be a function of the driving expertise. Americans spend roughly $43 billion yearly on greater than 200 million alternative tires for passenger automobiles, in response to the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s National Research Council. Globally, greater than 1 billion tires are disposed of every 12 months, and 40% of them find yourself in landfills. With all of the controversy about chemical plastic recycling claims, we needed to get the main points of this new course of and perceive how briskly it may scale up. You can study extra about Bridgestone’s tire recycling efforts at bridgestoneamericas.com.
