The following is part of the environmental themed advice column EarthTalk® by the Editors of the non-profit publication E/The Environmental Magazine that we'll be featuring here on CL's Green Community.
Dear EarthTalk: What would it take to produce “green” tires? The tire industry is huge and I understand that tires contain a large amount of petroleum products. Is there an alternative? — Scott Pierson, Norwalk, CT
Tires are indeed no friends to the environment. Most tires on the road today are constructed of roughly equal parts natural rubber, petroleum and “carbon black” filler (derived partially from burned fossil fuels), along with a dash of other chemical additives to improve functionality. The tire industry has embraced recycling in recent years, but still some 25 percent of tires wind up in landfills, according to Michael Bloch of the GreenLivingTips.com website. Still others are incinerated, which releases benzene, lead, butadiene, styrene and other potential carcinogens into the air we breathe.
This article appears in Sep 16-22, 2010.