LONDON (Dec. 12, 2007) — According to a new study by a British recycling body, crumb rubber from scrap tires can be incorporated successfully into retread compounds for truck and earthmover tires at much higher inclusion rates than was previously thought.
Waste & Resources Action Programme claims its research indicates retreads built with tread rubber using crumb rubber at levels of up to 40 percent suffered no reduction in durability or performance when compared with the industry standard.
In some cases the new compounds even showed an improvement in performance when compared with the control materials: They cured 20 percent more quickly and proved more durable, WRAP said.
The 14-page study, "Using waste tire rubber in retreads at high inclusion rates," recaps research on both truck tires fitted to dual-drive axle dump trucks and earthmover tires on dump vehicles. The report is available for free at www.wrap.org.uk.
The United Kingdom produces about 130,000 waste tires every day, so testing and developing new outlets for tire-derived rubber material is a priority for the industry, according to Steve Waite, project manager for tires at WRAP.