The Economist, August 11, 1990 v316 n7667 p70(1) 
                What can I do with this old tyre? (recycling tires) (Business) 
            Full Text: COPYRIGHT Economist Newspaper Ltd. (England) 1990 
            THE greening of business means that A companies must pay more 
            attention to how their products are recycled or disposed of. The 
            surest way of achieving that will be to turn environmental problems 
            into business opportunities. It is not going to be easy. Consider 
            the problem of worn-out tyres. 
            There are billions of them around. About 270m tyres are discarded 
            every year in America alone, which has a stockpile of old tyres 
            reckoned to total 3 billion. As in other car-mad countries, old 
            tyres are turning into mountains because the time-honoured method of 
            disposal throwing them on to a rubbish tip-is being restricted. 
            Tyres decompose slowly, sometimes taking as long as 80 years to 
            disintegrate. They are also bulky and they trap air, which 
            unfortunately makes landfills unstable. 
            Recycling will become more commercially attractive, according to a 
            study by KPMG Peat Marwick McLintock, a firm of management 
            consultants. To spur progress the consultants suggest that tyre 
            distributors should impose a small charge on customers to help pay 
            for the development of better ways of disposal, especially 
            shredding. In some countries, like Japan (which wears out 80m tyres 
            a year), old tyres already have to be shredded before they are 
            dumped. 
            If tyres are shredded finely enough they can be used in other 
            products. A small market has already developed using rubber crumbs 
            from old tyres in carpet underlays, sports surfaces and even for 
            road repairs. With cleaner, more efficient incinerators, the 
            consultants reckon the use of old tyres as an industrial fuel will 
            increase too. 
            Then there is retreading. This involves capping the casing of a worn 
            tyre with a new tread. Retread tyres are frequently used on lorries; 
            some operators have their tyres retreaded four or five times before 
            buying new ones. But retread tyres suffer from a dowdy, second-best 
            image in rich markets. The consultants reckon that improved 
            marketing, along with better standards, could turn retread tyres 
            into a "green" product. Now there's a challenge. 
             
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