The use of crumb rubber, recycled rubber produced from automotive and truck scrap tyres, is still surrounded by negative media reports and uncertainty from concerned citizens despite having over 90 separate pieces of research saying there are no risks attached to its use in synthetic turf.
Robin Wiener, President of the US Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), said the issue “is not going away” and will not do so until “a definitive study” has been published.
Despite the impressive body of research, the negativity surrounding crumb rubber use in artificial turf have prompted some US jurisdictions to delay purchasing decisions, while 13 bills have emerged in the US this year targeting this application.
The uncertainty has also led to a 30% decline in the crumb rubber market over recent years and also to job losses, Wiener told the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) Tyres & Rubber Committee meeting in Hong Kong on May 22.
She warned that this represented “an industry-wide issue affecting all recyclers, regardless of commodity” and that it was therefore essential to “work together, sharing information and strategies”. She pointed delegates in the direction of an ISRI microsite,called Recycled Rubber Facts, which carries information on “all the various studies out there that have demonstrated the safety of this material”.
The Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), an agency of the European Union, have both insisted recently that the health risks associated with rubber granulate were “negligible”, it was also noted by BIR Tyres & Rubber Committee Chairman Barend Ten Bruggencate of RecyBEM in the Netherlands.
He also highlighted statistics from the European Tyre and Rubber Manufacturers’ Association (ETRMA) indicating that 95% of the EU-28’s used tyres underwent some form of treatment in 2015 – including material and energy recovery – whereas only 5% or 186,000 tonnes was landfilled.
Tyre retreading consumes 4% and has been “stagnant” in China over recent years, the Hong Kong meeting was informed by Qiang Yu, Executive Chairman of the China National Tyre Recycling Association and President of Tianjin Hi-tech Environmental Development Co. Ltd.
The most recent figures available suggest regenerated rubber production in China accounts for 36.5% of waste rubber utilisation while vulcanised rubber powder production and thermal cracking contribute a further 5% and 3.6%, respectively.