One Nigerian Entrepreneur's Solution For Millions of Old Tires | World Wide Waste | Insider Business

this is one of Nigeria's first tire recycling businesses workers start by ripping out the steel wires so the rubber can be cut shredded and turned into bricks for driveways and playgrounds this is softer and actually a big bounci here a falo shway started free recycle back in 2018 now her company recycles hundreds of tires per day we have over 400,000 tires stock piled on site but it's only a tiny slice of the problem humans throw out around a billion tires every year recycling them gets expensive and complicated so in most countries they just pile up in landfills and here in Nigeria they can help spread malaria we have stagnant water that can then become a breeding ground for mosquitoes so why is it so hard to recycle t tires and why are Tire graveyards so dangerous more than half of all the cars in Nigeria are in and around its biggest city losos so there's a good chance old tires will end up with a roadside mechanic like Sam maybe you are going on the road you have flat tire I will repair it for you he saves any Tire he can't fix to sell to free recycle Sway and other shop owners like Adams make about 30 cents for each tire it's good it's good good because that this tire is condemn before cannot use for anything before before so but now can I can s for free company today's Hall will be stored in the lot behind free recycles 2 and 1/2 acre facility when a fedal upo wanted to launch the business no one believed she could make money out of a pile of tires they kind of looked at us like we're crazy and generally that was the reaction but now she has more than 100 full-time employees and the business makes about 16 cents for every recycled tire my first Tire the first baby was recycled in in October 2020 the first challenge is removing the steel wires embedded within the rubber so one of her first Investments was this machine called the debater which removes them in about 20 seconds next the tires head to this Chopper which cuts each one into four or five pieces making them easier to work with the company can process about 15 car tires per hour the same things that make tires durable also make them hard to recycle in the 1800s Charles goodar accidentally dropped rubber treated with sulfur onto a stove and discovered a process to harden the material called vulcanization it made rubber stronger and resistant to extreme temperatures exactly what cars need out of tires as more Americans started driving rubber production exploded in the early 20th century and most of it came from plantations in Southeast Asia and then World War II happened the verdict is in on rubber the enemy now has over 90% of the world's source of raw rubber the Allies needed a lot of rubber for trucks cars and planes the US asked its major manufacturers to find an additional source synthetic rubber one of War time's newest Industries one of America's modern Miracles today's tires are a blend of natural and synthetic rubber reinforced with metal and plastic fibers to make them more durable but no matter how tough they are they don't last forever and all of the old rubber quickly piled up by the end of the 20th century the US had accumulated well over a billion old tires in landfills they can Lee toxins and when buried they can sometimes trap methane or other gases and literally float to the surface they also burn fairly easily in 1987 about 30 Acres of tires caught fire in Colorado it took almost a week to put them out and the incident brought this kind of waste into the national Spotlight within a few years all but two states passed laws that helped fund a new tire scrap industry by 20121 the US had reduced the number of stockpile tires to just 50 million now America Burns a third of its used tires to fuel cement kils and paper mills and another third are turned into rubber surfaces like artificial turf less than 20% ends up in landfills but in developing countries like Nigeria Tire waste is still a growing problem the country ranks in the bottom 10% worldwide for recycling and sustainability but free recycle is aiming to change that at the factory outside of losos the Shredder rips tires into chunks these drums Crush crush them into even smaller pieces workers rake the remnants over vibrating screens and large vacuums prevent rubber dust from filling the factory air pieces 5 mm and smaller fall through larger chunks go back through the process and get crushed again magnets pull out any remaining metal shards so here is the fiber separator where the fibers have been separated from the Chrome rubber these are reinforcement fibers usually made of plastic nylon or some other synthetic material Now All That Remains is rubber the final vibrating screen separates the different sizes powder which will give a softer feel suitable for playgrounds and gyms and 3 to 5 mm crumbles which are durable enough to use for driveways to make those papers rubber crumbs twirl inside heated mixers a polyurethane binder helps hold everything together it took a long time to figure out the right ratio that could work in Nigeria's tropical Savannah climate a mix or formulation that would work in let's say Europe wouldn't necessarily work here so you know you just have to find what works best dyes adjust the color a small layer of the colored mixture goes into the mold first then the rest of the brick is filled in with undyed rubber mix which helps cut down on manufacturing costs then it is pressed down by hand and loaded onto TRS after loading it is being rolled to the hydraulic press where we where we press all the mix material for proper compression finally it sits in an oven to dry for up to 8 hours Nigeria's unreliable electric grid means the factory has to make most of the power it uses 80% of our power is generated internally from diesel power Genera sets workers tap the dried pavers out of the molds on a typical day they make roughly enough pieces to cover an entire tennis court every Tire produces about 25 of these dog bone-shaped rubber Bricks now they're ready to ship scrap tires have become a 12 billion Global industry in the US us Europe and Japan most get recycled and many are burned to create energy Tire based fuel costs less than natural gas and burns cleaner than coal but it still produces emissions comparable to other fossil fuels in another method called pyrolysis tires are heated to extreme temperatures without oxygen Advocates claim it's the cleanest way to recycle them but it requires a lot of energy leaving small profit margins in the US a third of recycled tires become new surfaces in home H and playgrounds or mulch for gardens in response to public concerns about shredded rubber leaking toxins one US Federal agency said it couldn't prove there were any health risks but it recommended that kids should not eat the rubber Sound Advice back in losos free recycles top selling items are paving stones used in playgrounds like this one at an international school we've been very happy with their service um The product's Good the thick rubber provides a nice bounce for children at play but also makes repairs and additions easier if you want to add more services or add more structures you just remove it and and when you finished put it back while free recycle aims to eliminate all of Nigeria's Tire dumps for now this waist stream is still growing but that's not eo's only concern the mother of two is raising a family and a business together she says free recycle is on the verge of becoming profitable and she continues building it Brick by Brick I think she's like a natural fixer she saw a problem she found a solution Charming but she's disturbingly efficient she plans to expand throughout the country as well as Rwanda Ivory Coast Ghana and Kenya I would like to see us um tackling more waste different types of waste your paper waste electronic waste uh pet botle that's why our tagline is whis to weth

Channel: Business Insider

Views: 12,942,846

Keywords: Business Insider, Business News, Tires, Recycle, Environment, Nigeria, Playground, Artificial turf, AstroTurf, Rubber, mosquitoes, Entrepreneur

Id: IFQ9zQekRio

Length: 9min 48sec (588 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 02 2023