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INNOVATIONS IN THE SCRAP TIRE INDUSTRY Other agricultural applications include burning whole tires to mark areas for crop COMPARISON OF HEATING VALUES dusting. The tires burn for hours. Black Amount of Energy Release smoke from burning tires serves as a BTU/ KILOJOULES/ ground level wind indicator which is easily FUEL POUND KILOGRAM identified by aircraft. Many tires are also scrap tires 15,000 34,950 used as weights to hold down silage cov- lignite coal 7,000 16,310 bituminous coal 12,000 27,960 ers. petroleum coke 13,500 31,455 no.6 fuel oil 18,000 41,940 Civil engineering applications include municipal solid Waste 3,500 8,155 newspaper 7,400 17,242 artificial reefs, retaining walls, crash barri- sawdust 7,800 18,174 ers, and rubber modified asphalt. The use of rubber modified asphalt (RMA) will soon fill a market mandated by the Tires create considerably less ash than Intermodal Surface Transportation Effi- certain types of coal and typically contain ciency Act of 1991 (ISTEA). ISTEA less sulfur. mandates a prescribed percentage of recycled tire rubber to be used on Feder- When shredded tires are mixed and ally funded asphalt paving projects. burned with coal, the higher thermal value aids in complete combustion. This results The California Department of Transporta- in a decrease in the release of emissions tion is a leader in the use of RMA. How- to the atmosphere. ever, only one Los Angeles Company supplies crumb rubber used in RMA. Two inch Tire Derived Fuel (TDF) is also Much of the crumb rubber product is used to fuel furnaces in pulp and paper imported from out-of-state. Between 800 mills as well as cement kilns. The steel and 1,200 tires are used per mile of a two- found in a tires bead wire and belts is lane three inch lift roadway. consumed, as iron oxide, in the production of cement. TIRES USED AS ENERGY The largest current consumer of tires in California is the Modesto Energy Plant in A large market in California for scrap Westley. The site originally reported up tires is energy. The thermal value of one to 40 million tires and was known as the pound of tire material is 15,000 world's largest scrap tire facility. Modesto BTU/pound or 34,950 Kilojoules/kilogram. Energy has since reduced its volume of This is twice that of ordinary combustibles tires to about 6 million. They passed the like coal and wood. world's largest title on to a facility in north western Ohio, which now stores 60 million tires. The Modesto Energy plant 7