Let’s face it folks, the tire industry as a whole is not perceived as environmentally friendly. We’re practical people: The wheel is round, and made of rubber, steel, and oil. This design has worked well since the advent of the steel-belted radial. While incremental improvements in design have been realized, “The wheels on the bus..” still go “round and round…” for a reason: A majority of the civilised world still depends on the humble tire for their daily transportation needs. Evidently, the people who predicted the hovercar in the ’50s were being overly optimistic.
With projections that cyclical commodity shortages will get worse over the long term, the question is no longer “Should we recycle”? It keeps prices down, brings good publicity, and is what all the “popular” kids are doing (notice I didn’t say anything about it actually doing a thing for the environment). Environmentally responsible use of so-called “repurposed” materials is not just socially acceptable, but is good for the balance sheet as well. The current business environment has produced a hybrid even stranger than the Prius: The Enviro-Capitalist. This is the guy that sees a profitable marriage of socially responsible things like recycling, and “evil” things like increased quarterly dividends. Their viewpoint is that if a product is recycled or “green”, it should have at least some of the following qualities:
- The product should be technologically, or otherwise superior to the current product in production.
- The product should cost less to produce, either because of repurposed materials, or a revamped manufacturing process.
- The product should be something that is manufactured in response to a perceived demand. It should not be manufactured to fill a void in the market that does not exist.
In 2008, the good folks at Rice University published a paper called “The Value of Green Tires to Corporate Profitability“. The main point of the paper is that a tire, using 15% or more of post-consumer ERP (Engineered Rubber Powders) has massive benefits for both consumers and manufacturers as a whole.
For the tire manufacturer it would, among other things (and I am quoting from page 4):
- Lower input costs
- Lower production costs
- Capture reputation value
- Create a closed loop, generating savings for tire manufacturers and distributors.
The first two points are self-explanatory, however, the last two may need to be expounded upon. “Capturing reputation value”, is simply a euphemism for “Good Press”. Every news agency, wants to show their corporate commitment to environmental responsibility these days. In addition to celebrating “Green Month”, like NBC did this year, they also tend to highlight/promote green products to the consumer. Creating a “green” tire is a great way to get advertising for free.
Insofar as a closed loop system goes, this merely speaking about the cycle that the rubber itself will go through. The tire company buys ERP’s from a recycler. It then puts the product into its tires, which are sold to the retailer, who then sends its used tires and casings back to the recycler, so that they can be turned into ERP’s. Eventually(or so my theory goes), green tires would make up enough of the market, that the loop would close even further. Michelin (or Bridgestone) would start offering pickup of used tires, directly from dealers, and apply a credit to their next invoice. The savings would be enormous for both dealer and manufacturer (and the profits wouldn’t be bad, either). 1 ton of ERP’s costs 30-50% less than a similar amount of virgin rubber.
Now, lets go to the demand for such a product. On page 6, they cite an Imagepower Green Brands survey. It states that consumers buy for the following reasons:
- Green products are considered to be of superior quality
- Consumers perceive green as a direct and positive reflection of their social status, in addition to recognizing its broader value to society and the world.
- 80% of consumers believe it is important to buy from green companies.
So, much of the marketing has been done already. You may not think of the environmental movement as a giant marketing campaign, but if you examine it closely , that is exactly what it is. As a corporation, you would be foolish to not take advantage of the edge that the “green” label gives you. It’s even better, when you consider that by using ERP’s, you can reduce rolling resistance anywhere from 10-12%. That’s substantial, both in terms of tire life, and also in terms of fuel consumption.
I was surprised to note that Michelin, Bridgestone, and even Kumho have come out with low rolling resistance tires this year. ( It looks like they will be made available in a small range of sizes, for starters. )In fact, TireRack did a road test on these (using a Prius, of course), and found that they increased total MPG by up to 5%. There is one problem, however. None of the tires headed to market at the time of the Rice University report had any recycled content in the tire. Essentially, there were no ERP’s (p.9).
Many companies have begun marketing a low roll resistance,high priced “green tire” containing silica coated with saline. However, this product contains little to no recycled content, so (it) does not fully capitalize on the opportunity for a green tire.
In doing research for this article, I was not able to find a single mention of what is being used to decrease rolling resistance, other than synergistic engineering and aerodynamics. That’s not to say that tires using ERP’s aren’t in the pipeline, or that one of the manufacturer’s omitted that fact in their product brochures. I am just saying that if they have used recycled materials, they must be embarrassed to have done so, because they haven’t made the information easy to find.
“So what’s the big deal with ERP’s”, you may be asking. Well, for starters, it tends to packed a bit tighter on the molecular level. This means that it will keep your tires inflated at the proper pressure, for a longer period of time. It is also abundant. Some folks from our company took a tour of a tire dump the other day. They estimated that there was well over 250,000+ tons of tire related waste, buried on the property. The tire companies could make enough money selling the steel they extracted from crushing up this waste to get a decent subsidy for operations.
By melting the tires down, they could use the TDF(tire derived fuel) as a replacement for the oil used in other tires(p10). How in the world are tire companies not changing their operations? This is good business and environmental responsibility walking hand in hand. I know that these are huge, multinational corporations. I also know that ignoring essentially free money and marketing is not really smart.
The manufacturer who figures out how to best incorporate recycling, chemistry, and overall tire technology into its strategy will have the edge on other producers for the next 10 years. It seems that the current administration is intent on making “green” mandatory, instead of just an option. If they don’t, the next administration will. I say that, so that everyone realizes that changes are inevitable . There will never be a good time to sink huge amounts of money into research. Why should innovation have to be mandated by law? I read press releases all the time, and all of them have to do with manufacturing or mergers. I want to see a manufacturer commit to real innovation.
Sure, the wheel has to be round. But it can also be made of 30% post consumer waste, have longer air retention, lower rolling resistance, with a smoother ride and higher mileage guarantees. If, as the Union posited recently, the Chinese really have taken away the tier 3 market, figure out a way to take it back. In the process, make tiers 1 and 2 unassailable. We’ve tens-of-thousands of unemployed engineers, chemists, and supply chain experts that are out of jobs. Why not take a little grief from the stockholders (and a little cut in your yearly bonus), to ensure that your technology is the best, worldwide? Why not take free publicity for your company? Why not make the best product that you possibly can?
I can’t answer for them. I really can’t. I’m sure that if I had the opportunity to ask the Heads of each of the major manufacturers, they would answer that they have. They’d point to the fact that they had x amount of sales this year, they spent this and that on R&D, and they had market research that showed this and that. They’d show that some consumer group just voted their tire highest in overall quality. They would be right. They just wouldn’t be the best.
The best is not even on the horizon.
- Until such a time as tire companies begin to make full use of the resources available to them…
- Until they quit waiting to be pushed into change, and start moving pro-actively towards greatness…
- Until quality is as much of a concern as the latest stock price…
They aren’t even close.
The market exists, the advertising has been done, the only thing left is to introduce the product.
Would somebody just commit to doing that, on a large scale?
Stay tuned for the latest new affecting the tire and mining industry. Until next time, we’ll be…
Signing off…
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