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With a production of 2.5 billion tires annually, tires are pretty much all around us. Has it ever occurred to you that those tires could be linked to deforestation of tropical forests? Or have you considered other harmful impacts tires have on the environment?
While early tires were made from leather, iron, and steel, the pneumatic tires prevalent today, are made of a mix of natural and synthetic rubber (complemented by a mix of various chemicals and compounds). Synthetic rubber is made from fossil fuels, while natural rubber is made from tropical trees.
Around 70% of the natural rubber produced worldwide ends up as tires.
The rubber industry has been responsible for deforestation in Southeast Asia and West Africa. Between 1993 and 2017 more than 4 million hectares of tropical forests have been cleared for rubber plantations in Southeast Asia. Tracking the supply chain and guaranteeing sustainable and deforestation-free sourcing is difficult.
Rubber is one of the seven commodities included in the EU Deforestation Regulation.
The EUDR and the issue of traceability and deforestation-links of supply chains as well as the experiences of investors, companies and NGO work related to it, were addressed on the third seminar of the Tropical Forest Arena. If you have not made it to the seminar, you can watch the recording here or contact us for the presentations held.
But back to the tires: Apart from causing deforestation of tropical forests and difficulties guaranteeing sustainable sourcing, tires also pollute water, land, and air during the rest of their life cycle (use, discarding):
An average of 400 added chemicals per tire have either unknown or known adverse impacts on the environment and health of humans and other living beings.
During their use, tires release toxic particulate emissions. In fact, car tire dust causes 2000 times more particulate pollution than car exhausts.
Additionally, as tires were off, microplastics are released, making tire wear a major source of microplastics pollution.
But also after their use, discarding tires is problematic. Around 750 million tires are deposited in landfills every year, where they leech toxins over time. Open burning of tires is no alternative, as it releases noxious gases as carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and sulphur dioxide.
Possible ways of addressing the issue, include recycling, extending the life cycle of tires or re-using their components, developing alternatives to rubber that are not sourced from the tropics (like dandelions, which can grow on marginal lands, thereby not competing with food production) and reducing demand for tires by reducing the number of cars and developing non-individual based mobility solutions.
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