Eh: There are many reasons. Firstly, it must be understood that waste tyres and the processing thereof cannot be regarded in the same light as that of other waste materials such as glass, paper, plastic or metals which are readily recyclable and have commercial value. Waste tyres have no commercial value at all and can only be processed at great cost. The steel content of a tyre cannot be readily extracted for recycling because it is an expensive process, the cost of which exceeds the value of extracted product. It can only be done as part of a holistic waste management programme that requires substantial capital investment. It must be borne in mind that tyres are not bio-degradable and are not suitable for dumping on landfill sites. The only way to deal with waste tyres is through a proper waste management process. There are a number of options available, such as the manufacturing of rubber crumb which can then be applied in various ways, the most known option being mixing it with bituminous compounds for tarring of roads. Another viable option is using waste tyres to help fuel kilns at paper, brick or cement factories.
There are other options, but the bottom line is that every waste management option requires considerable investment to process waste tyres. Tyres have to be shredded and processed for the rubber crumb option, whilst the kiln energy extraction option, apart from a shredding process, requires considerable capital investment to modify kilns to accept the waste, along with special systems required to capture harmful gases. The irony is that there are numbers of processors who have spent millions of Rand to complete environmental impact assessments (EIAs) and the associated project plans in anticipation of a guaranteed supply of waste tyres. This cannot commence until waste tyre plans are gazetted. There is a further aspect about the processing of waste tyres that poses perhaps the single biggest challenge and that is the issue of logistics. Tyres are bulky and heavy and the geographical distribution of tyres throughout the country makes collection and transport a complicated and costly exercise. I can go on and on about the challenges but I believe these points sufficiently demonstrate the uniqueness of the problem and why we spent so many years and invested so much in research to find the optimal solution for this growing environmental hazard.
0 comments:
Post a Comment