Hey, hey – what the hell are you doing? I see you. Put that old tire down. Are you crazy? Who throws old tires down in the creek?
What? You think it’s going to melt? Biodegrade? Decompose? Are you nuts?
You throw an old tire in a creek and it’s gonna be there for a million years. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration. Let’s just say it’s going to be there a long, long time. You think it’s going to magically rot away. Some biological organisms are going to eat it and it will disappear?
Fuggeddaboutit! There are no organisms that feed on rubber. So after ten thousands of years, the heat, friction from movement, freezing and evaporation might break that tire down into smaller pieces, but it’s not going away.
You want to do the right thing, don’t you? Make a tire swing out of it. Or a planter. Or a chair. There’s a thousand ways to reuse tires and you can find them all on that Internet thingy. This country disposes of 300 million tires per year – almost one per person. If we put them in a landfill they trap water that attracts rodents and mosquitoes. Plus, the methane emissions get trapped and the whole pile ignites. It ain’t easy to put out a tire fire. Tire-fire may sound silly, but not if the smoke is pouring into your backyard.
Tires can be converted into TDF – that’s tire-derived fuel. It’s an alternative to fossil fuels and even better, it produces 25 percent more energy than coal. The tires are put through a shredder that uses powerful knives to tear the tires into small pieces. The steel can be sorted out for other recycled uses. Then the remaining pieces of rubber can be incinerated to produce energy, used as playground mulch or even material for new tires.
See what I’m saying? There’s a right way to save the planet and fight back against climate change, and there’s a wrong way. It just takes a little bit of consideration for your old Mother Nature. Trust me, you don’t want to be on my bad side.
All my love,
Mom
Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.
