Whether it’s breathing new life into old clothes or making art from chopsticks, the circular economy is all the rage.
Now a Dutch startup has developed a technology for recycling old tires. Each year around 13.5 million tons of waste are produced from 1.5 billion tires.
Tires are generally burned, releasing CO2 and poisonous gases into the atmosphere. Needlessly.
Tires are 20-25% carbon black, an everyday material which can be used to dye, say, mobile phone cases or keyboards.
Through gentle heating carbon black is now being extracted by the startup from around 1 million old tires.
What’s left is converted to oil and gas to generate energy, helping them to achieve a negative CO2 balance.
Quite positive.
