[Debate] (Fwd) Who burns tyres? We ALL do... :-(

[Patrick Bond]

Last Friday after the Climate Justice meeting, driving Des D'Sa home to 
Wentworth, we detoured through Clairwood after an activist called, 
finding ourselves outside a transport company whose truck drivers race 
their vehicles through the South Durban residential 'hood. Ten deaths 
are known to have resulted from truckers in Clairwood, and so there are 
VERY angry residents now fed up with illegal transport, mechanic and 
light industrial operations surrounding them.

Here's the dynamic community leader Mervyn Reddy, shortly after a child 
was nearly hit on Friday, early evening:


Mervyn and 100 residents had blocked the entrance to the transport 
company and burned a couple of tyres to make their point. This happens 
every day, probably a few dozen times in South Africa's furious poor and 
working neighbourhoods.

I thought of this scene on the weekend when reading a Durban municipal 
document prepared by scientists who recommend burning the city's old 
tyres in cement kilns: 
http://www.assaf.org.za/2011/08/durban-on-a-pathway-towards-a-low-carbon-city/#more-4981 
(p.114). These Dr Strangeloves get sustenance for the recommendation 
here: 
http://www.durban.gov.za/durban/services/cleansing/environmental-education/recycling/waste-minimisation-and-recycling/tyres 
which says, "Tyres are a disposal problem as they consume considerable 
airspace relative to their weight and cannot be compacted... It is worth 
noting they have a calorific value well above that of coal, and 
therefore lend themselves to uses as a fuel in cement kilns and ordinary 
furnaces for the production of electricity."

Thank goodness the Institute for Zero Waste in Africa has this factsheet 
for policymakers... Thanks, Muna... but hey comrades, what do we do 
about activist tyre-burning? Any good non-toxic substitutes out there 
that make a bright light and noticeable smoke?



This factsheet produced July 2004

*Stop Burning Jobs and our Health!*

**

South African cement companies want to burn tyres as fuel for making 
cement - we must say no!

"...there's no scientific basis for concluding that burning waste tyres 
in cement kilns is safe."(Dr. Seymour I. Schwartz, Professor of 
Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis and 
author of the report "Domestic Markets for California's Used and Waste 
Tyres".)

*/What is in tyres?/*

·Natural rubber and synthetic rubber containing styrene and butadiene

·Up to 17 different heavy metals (including lead, zinc, arsenic, and 
chromium)

·Benzene-based extender oils and other petrochemicals

·Carbon black

·Chlorine

*/What happens when tyres are burned?/*

·The hazardous constituents are released into the air and create new, 
frequently more toxic, compounds.

·Chlorinated materials produce dioxin. Dioxins are some of the most 
toxic chemicals known; damaging health effects include cancer, birth 
defects, and impaired child development.

·Incomplete combustion of benzene leads to the creation of highly toxic 
dioxins, furans, PCB's (polychlorinated biphenyls), and PAH's 
(polyaromatic hydrocarbons) - all known to cause cancer or reproductive 
problems.

·Metals are not destroyed at any temperature - 100% are emitted from the 
stack or concentrated in the cement product or in the waste material of 
the process. Lead is poisonous to the nervous system and known to cause 
learning disabilities; zinc can cause birth defects; chromium and 
arsenic can cause cancer.

*/What's wrong with burning tyres in cement kilns?/*

·Cement kilns are designed to make cement, not to be waste incinerators. 
Cement kilns are not equipped with secondary combustion chambers to 
assure complete destruction of wastes.

·Cement kilns do not have to meet the same stringent standards of 
performance and the emission limits required of commercial incineration 
facilities.

·Combustion recovers only a portion of the energy contained in a tyre; 
true recycling is much more energy efficient. Tyres are being truly 
recycled into rubberized asphalt roadbeds and other rubber products, 
such as new tyres. Scrap tyre shreds are being used successfully as 
drainage layers under roadways, fill for embankments and retaining 
walls, frost barriers, and more.

*/What will be the economic impacts?/*

·Studies are finding that indirect exposure to toxins through the food 
chain presents serious health risks to humans, even more serious than 
inhaling pollutants, which is already very unhealthy, and therefore 
increased healthcare costs for communities and government.

·At least 75 different products can be made from scrap tyres (see list 
below) that our communities around the country can make to earn a 
living, and enter the economy.

·Contaminated agricultural products, fish and game could threaten an 
area's economic vitality.

·Property values for kilometres around cement factories could drop.

·Text Box: Please Turn Over ...Cement companies may even import scrap 
tyres; our local communities and agricultural lands would receive the 
resulting pollution.

·Toxic chemicals released by burning tyres at cement factories will 
become part of the food chain, entering water, soil, plants, livestock, 
dairy products, and wildlife.

*/What's the point?/*

·Burning tyres in cement kilns is not "recycling" or a sound disposal 
solution. Toxic by-products are created and dispersed to enter the food 
chain and our bodies.

·Cement factories in other countries that are permitted to burn tyres 
and other wastes have been unable to consistently stay within emission 
limits.

·Cement companies should not burn wastes to save on fuel costs at the 
expense of the surrounding communities.

·Not a single operation in South Africa that burns waste today is run 
correctly.

·South Africa must, as a signatory to the Stockholm Convention, REDUCE 
the production of Dioxins and Furans, which tyre burning increases.

*Waste tyres can be used to make all these job-creating products, all 
across our country:*


*Road and Rail Applications *

·Rubber modified bitumen

·Hot mix bitumen

·Reflective crack sealant

·Waterproof membranes

·Gap seals

·Stress absorbing membranes

·Acoustic barriers

·Road base

·Portable traffic control devices

·Ripple strips and speed bumps

·Rail crossings, sleepers and buffers

·Roadside safety railing

*Construction & Industrial *

·Foundation material

·Industrial flooring & footpaths

·Anti-static computer mats

·Acoustic barriers

·Sprayed up roofing, insulation and waterproofing

·Adhesive sealants

·Mounting pads and shock absorbers

·Membrane protection

·Airfield runways

·Shoe soles

·Carpet underlay

·Children's playground surfacing

·Flexible foam

·Rollers

·


	Text Box: WHAT YOU CAN DO TO STOP THIS: Contact the Deputy Minister of 
Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Rejoice Mabhudafasi, on 012-310-3898 
Fax: 012-320-1849, or email her personal assistant on 
pdisenyeng at deat.gov.za to complain about this matter, urging her not to 
allow the burning of tyres in any shape or form, and ask for a written 
response.


Text Box: This factsheet is produced by the Earthlife Africa Toxics 
Group in the interests of the health of our people and planet, and the 
re-direction of useful resources, from being used to increase profits 
and health problems, to creating sustainable jobs for our people. Visit 
www.earthlife-ct.org.za for more copies of this factsheet.
Pond liners

·Compression moulding compound

·Extrusion compounding for rubber products

·Injection moulding compound

·Solid tyres for industrial equipment

·Conveyor belts

*Packaging *

·Filler

·Bags

·Recycling bins

*Bulk Products & Mining *

·Filter for landfill leachate ponds

·Erosion control landfills

·Road base / stone replacement

·Leachate pond liners

·Oil spill absorber

·Aggregate surfacing

·Mulches and perma-mulches

*Automotive *

·Filler in new tyre manufacture

·Tyre retreads

·Solid and pneumatic tyres

·Oil spill absorber

·Floor mats, mud flaps, moulded protection strips

·Special friction brakes

·Car door and window seals

·Segmented earthmoving tyres

·Gaskets

·Adhesive sealants

·Sprayable sealant for automobile wheel housings

·Vehicle bumper bars

·Flooring for truck trays and tipper bodies

*Marine *

·Wharf buffers

·floating docks

·Non slip flooring

*Sporting *

·Flooring

·Sporting fields, athletic tracks, tennis courts, etc

·Gymnasium flooring and matting

·Equestrian surfaces and workout areas

*Rural and Landscaping *

·Flooring

·Turf and horse training tracks

·Watering systems, rubber hosing & low pressure irrigation drip hoses

·Agricultural pipes

·Flower pots, wall hangers, pot plants

·Animal bedding

·Protective fencing

·Sprayable linings for grain silos, storage tanks, etc

·Tyres for agricultural machinery




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