How India is making new roads from recycled old tires

DW (English)

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.

Transcript

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)

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