Tires are an indispensable part of daily life. Without them, our vehicles would just be a bunch of assembled parts — convenient to sit in, but not effective for getting where you are going.
Tires are an indispensable part of daily life. Without them, our vehicles would just be a bunch of assembled parts — convenient to sit in, but not effective for getting where you are going.
While their usefulness is undisputed, tires do come with some problems. A 2016 Federal Highway Administration report found 280 million tires are discarded annually in the United States. Globally, this number is much higher — over a billion, according to a report by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
What to do with these end-of-life tires is an ongoing and often complicated conversation.
Tires are composite materials that have a lot of components in them, including a molecule known as 6PPD, which provides UV protection to help the rubber found in tires last longer. The 6PPD accomplishes this by absorbing the sun’s rays and preventing the material from breaking down due to reactions with ozone and other reactive oxygen species in the air.
Read More: University of Delaware
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