India is the world's third-largest car market, but tire waste is a growing problem. A tire recycling company is making the rubber meet the road, recycling old tires into a material that is used to reinforce asphalt for road construction.
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00:00 Israel Samnani has no shortage of clients right now.
00:06 His company, based not far from Mumbai, specialises in recycling old tyres.
00:11 He started out in the business four decades ago.
00:14 We are into truck tyres, so the transport companies are the first choice.
00:19 The second one is the tyre fitters, which are known as pancharwalas.
00:24 So we go and source tyres from them.
00:28 The amount of waste tyres processed by Ismail's team has almost doubled over the past five
00:33 years.
00:34 His main customers are reclaimer companies.
00:37 Just like the booming car market, tyre recycling is a growing business in India.
00:46 Last year alone, it gave new life to some 1.5 million old tyres, industry experts say.
00:52 But it could be more - the majority still end up in refuse dumps.
01:01 In order to have safe disposal strategies come up from the government or from the industry
01:07 side, it is important that we don't dump it in landfills, because that could pose problems
01:13 such as the infestation of the pests onto the tyres, or even if you incinerate, the
01:20 incineration of tyres can actually be very detrimental to the environment.
01:24 The burning of tyres can pollute the environment, and if you put it in landfill, that will also
01:30 damage the ecosystem.
01:32 The town of Wada, 75 kilometres outside Mumbai, is home to one of India's leading tyre recyclers.
01:40 The company uses the waste material to produce a material used as asphalt reinforcement in
01:45 road construction.
01:46 Over the past 10 years, it has up-cycled over 6 million used tyres.
01:54 All the waste tyres are kept in the yard down there.
01:57 They are then processed through the machines.
02:00 The first one is called a tyre shredder.
02:04 The tyres are shredded first in 50mm pieces before being sent through another machine
02:11 called a rasper, which further reduces them to a size of 25mm.
02:17 These are also called tyre chips.
02:26 The next step involves chopping up those chips into even smaller pieces and then packing
02:31 them up for delivery.
02:33 The fine granulate is later mixed with crushed stones and bitumen to create a raw material
02:39 called crumb.
02:40 It makes road surfaces more robust and durable.
02:49 Government policies and in fact the road engineering policy says the surface road should have a
02:55 better product which should survive at the higher temperature, which should survive with
03:03 the water also, which can carry the higher traffic loads.
03:07 So adding the crumb rubber to the bitumen, the bitumen overcomes its inherent weaknesses.
03:15 The material is being used in the construction of a 67km stretch of the Delhi-Jaipur highway.
03:21 The contractor on the project says the modified bitumen boosts the performance of asphalt
03:27 concrete.
03:28 It improves the ride quality of the road when compared to regular asphalt.
03:39 It will be smoother and the more traffic the road gets, the more it will help reduce friction
03:44 of cars.
03:51 Experts say that recycling scrapped tyres for new roads is an environmentally friendly
03:56 alternative to other second life options such as burning them to produce industrial oil.
04:06 The production of crumb rubber modified bitumen, however, is extremely energy intensive due
04:12 to the high temperatures required.
04:15 Still, compared to conventional asphalt, it generates considerably lower CO2 emissions.
04:24 And yet, despite the positives, road construction companies in India remain reluctant to use
04:30 the rubber bitumen.
04:34 I believe there is lack of education amongst the industry to use or to shred rubber into
04:41 recyclable product, number one, which also means that we are not geared up to use the
04:48 rubber in the right sense.
04:51 Number two is there is no mandate in the standard guidelines or the specifications that you
04:59 should start using recyclable products.
05:02 The government has introduced rules under which tyre manufacturers and importers must
05:07 recycle their products.
05:10 Companies have been too slow to respond and are demanding financial support to implement
05:16 the regulations.
05:17 Scientists, meanwhile, point to a range of opportunities for using recycled tyres.
05:23 We have also used rubber in preparing benches in parks.
05:30 So if you want to prepare dikes for ports, that could be used.
05:35 If you want to use it for some other purpose, I think there is umpteen number of uses of
05:40 rubber in civil infrastructure.
05:45 As for where the tyres are first used, it takes 15,000 scrap tyres to produce crumb
05:52 bitumen for one kilometre of road.
05:57 With a network that spans 6.7 million kilometres, India's roads hold immense potential for upcycled
06:05 waste tyres.
06:06 (tires screeching)