The Superior Express -

An advertisement elsewhere in this issue gives the date and time for a tire collection activity in Nuckolls County. If this year’s event is anything like similar events in prior years, by the end of the day there will be a big pile of worn out tires to be disposed of.

Tire disposal isn’t easy and it has gotten harder with the advent of the steel belted radial tires.

When I was a youngster, it would have been easier to recycle the bias ply tire for the only metal in those tires was around the beads but recycling was not mandated as it is now.

Discarded tires can be a health hazard for they often hold water and provide a mosquito breeding place.

When I was helping at my father’s gasoline station, tire disposal was one of my job. It was a nasty job for the tires usually contained water that soaked my jeans as I loaded and unloaded the discards.

Eventually we had a trailer dedicated to old tire collection and I only had to unload the water filled tires. I tried to toss the tires off the trailer in a manner that didn’t spill the water on my jeans or boots. Often the old tires were used for erosion control. If a ditch was forming, the tires could be placed in a way to slow the water runoff and allow the suspended dirt to settle with the hope the ditch would eventually be filled with silt.

Innovative people found other uses for the tires. I once bit on an advertisement for a book about alternative uses for tires and ordered the tip sheets. I didn’t see any thing I wanted to try but the author suggested tires could be used for siding and shingles. My house needs to have some siding replaced and the entire house painted. I haven’t checked but I suspect the city’s enforcement officer would find a reason to stop the project should I start to side my house with sections cut from discarded automobile tires.

I did once fill several tires with cement and use them for vehicle ballast. A couple small tires placed in an autombilie’s trunk would help with traction on snow and ice. I had a couple filled for the newspaper’s cargo van. When placed near the van’s rear doors, the cement filled tires helped with traction, but I got to thinking about what might happen, should the van driver have a wreck. I suspect the results would not have been good had the cement filled tires flew foreward and hit the driver.

With the current shoe price, I’ve thought about the plan for using tires to make sandals. I’ve never been one to wear sandals, but I did consider making a pair for a church play. I didn’t get past the planning stage as I didn’t have the specified bias ply tire.

My father’s gasoline station had a swing made from an automobile tire. Youngsters liked swinging in the swing, but it collected water and they often got in trouble with their parents when they got into the family automobile with wet britches after sitting in the swing.

The Mankato Post Office once had dock bumpers made from old tires as did boat docks.

A Burr Oak man had a business turning tractor tires to form animal feeders. I wanted to do a story about his business but he didn’t want the publicity.

Many tractor tires were used for youngsters’ sand boxes.

Before the Ideal Cement Plant closed, experiments were conducted to see if the tires could be utilized for fuel and reduce the plant’s need for natural gas or coal. I was told the tire fuel turned the plant’s smoke from white to black.

I’ve seen my father cut up tires and use them as liners inside a failed implement or trailer tire. In fact one of the tires on the trailer I used to haul off the worn out tires, had such a tire. I would not have wanted to use them on a vehicle that traveled at highway speed for the balance would have been off, However, the lined tires often delayed the time when a new, more costly tire, had to be bought.

At the gasoline station, we kept a truck tire or two around that was used for unloading oil. Drums of oil were rolled off the back of the semi-trailer and dropped onto the tire. It was my job to land on top of the oil drum and keep it from bouncing.

While we now use a forklift when unloading newsprint, when I joined The Express crew in 1970, there was a truck tire kept in the basement for unloading both ink and newsprint rolls.

Now there are businesses that collect old tires and recycle them, Tires are said to be among the most recycled products in the United States. When they become unsuitable for vehicle use, they may be used for ground rubber, asphalt additives and fuel.

I’ve read that 36.8 percent of the recycled tires are used for fuel, 24.4 percent for ground rubber and 5.1 percent in civil engineering projects. Though many states do not permit the disposal of tires in a landfill. 14.3 percent are disposed of that way.

When I checked the internet for ways to recycle tires, I learned there are several cement kilns in California that accept whole tires to burn as fuel and many recycling companies shred and export tires for use in overseas industrial boilers.

An EPA article reported tires produce the same amount of energy as oil and 25 percent more energy than coal. Additionally ash residues from tire-derived fuel may contain a lower heavy metals content and result in lower nitrogen oxide emissions compared to some coals.

Because of their durability, tires may be used for DIY projects like planters.

If you plan to turn a tire into a swing, I suggest you drill holes in the bottom to drain off any water that may collect in the tire. Had my father done that, I suspect he would have kept a lot of youngsters with wet seats from having to listen to unpleasant lectures from their mothers.