Eli5 why can’t tires be melted down and reused?
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While a few comments have talked about mechanical recycling to shred the tyres into crumb thay can be repurposed I haven’t seen any mentions of chemical recycling by pyrolysis yet. If you take the rubber and make it really hot in the absence of oxygen you can turn it into pyrolysis oil, gas and char. The char can be used to make new carbon black for tyre production, the oil can be blended into fuels or cracked to be a feedstock for the petrochemical industry.
It is an energy intensive process and not great for the environment but it is infinitly better than just piling them up and letting them rot or burn.
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