Earthship Logs

A New Trend for Old Treads

It was a fine day and I was soaring through the sky, scanning the ground for some delicious seeds for lunch when some repeated activity caught my eye. An elderly man was removing a large pile of old tires from the back of his pickup truck and heaping them up on the ground. I hoped that didn't mean what I feared it might, so I decided to swoop down and investigate.

As I flew toward the man, in my nicest super-hero voice I said, “Hello, there. My name is Captain Redbird.” Hearing a bird who wasn't a parrot talking to him seemed to startle the old gentleman. He tripped over a tire and started to fall, but I used my super bird reflexes to grab him before he hit the ground, and gently stood him upright again.

“YIKES!” he yelled. “My name is McClure. You really scared me! I was just getting ready to start burning this pile of old tires.”

Just as I feared — Mr. McClure was on the edge of committing a serious environmental mistake. To be fair, I decided to see if he had an explanation. “You were going to burn them?” I asked.

"Yessiree," he said without a trace of concern. “Only way I know of to get rid of the pesky old things.”

This, I decided, looked like a case for T.R.E.E. so I called headquarters and asked Captain Earthworm to bring the Enviro-Cruiser. In a flash, the cruiser appeared and I activated the special Enviro-Educator projector, a gizmo able to show 3-D holograms and movies.

The Enviro-Educator lit up and projected an image of a huge heap of tires. I tried to be properly polite but still sound stern. “Mr. McClure,” I said, “getting rid of old tires is a really good idea, but it must be done right. Piles of old tires left sitting around are first class breeding grounds for all sorts of unwanted pests, like mosquitoes and even rats.” Suddenly, the image of the tire pile seemed to swarm with big buzzing mosquitoes and some very unpleasant-looking rats.

“Ahhhhhh!” yelled Mr. McClure as he tried to swat and stomp the phantom pests.

While he swatted, I went on. “However, burning an old pile of tires can be even more dangerous.” The mosquitoes and rats vanished, but in their place the tire pile now appeared to be burning, bellowing out thick clouds of nasty black smoke into the air. McClure started coughing, even though there wasn't any real smoke.

“Really?” he said. “Somebody can do something with those worn out old things?”

"Sure," I answered. "Rubber from old tires can be recycled into something called 'crumb rubber,' which is a soft material made of very small pieces of tire rubber. This 'crumb' material can be used to make other products like floor mats, or flooring for playgrounds where it makes a softer, safer surface if children fall on it. It can be used in asphalt to build roads. On athletic fields it not only makes the surface softer, it makes it drier and it lasts longer. Old tires can also be shredded into little two-inch chips that are burned in special power plants as fuel, to provide electricity. That chipped material is called tire-derived fuel."

“Well, who'd of thought! I didn't know any of that, Captain Redbird. I'm so glad you stopped me, because I sure don't want to hurt our environment,” Mr. McClure said sincerely.

“Great!” I said. “We'd be happy to help you find a place to recycle those old tires, Mr. McClure. Would you like a ride in the Enviro-Cruiser?”

“Whoopee! I sure would,” he said excitedly, then halted a minute to ask “There won't be any more of those mosquitoes or that smoke, will there?” Captain Earthworm and I assured him the Enviro-Educator was safely turned off, as we loaded the tires into the Enviro-Cruiser and flew off into the sunset.

You don't have old tires to throw away, but be sure and remind your folks — and your brothers and sisters and grandparents — that tires can still be useful when they're disposed of properly.

Captain Redbird's Tire Facts

Here are some tips and facts from Captain Redbird that you can use at home, at school, and in your neighborhood to help keep the environment clean.

• Worn out tires should never be burned.
• Tires left lying outdoors are great breeding grounds for pests like mosquitoes.
• If large piles of scrap tires catch fire, they can burn for days or even weeks.
• More than 12 million old tires are thrown away in Illinois every year!

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