The Black Wheel Strikes Back: Testimony of an Era When Waste Tires Were Turned into Resources" - June 2001

The Black Wheel Strikes Back: Testimony of an Era When Waste Tires Were Turned into Resources" - June 2001

In 2001, the event of "the transformation of waste tires from fuel to a valuable resource" was not just a story of waste disposal, but an episode that symbolized the turning point of Japanese society toward a recycling-oriented society. Behind this was the explosive increase in the number of automobiles owned in conjunction with Japan's rapid postwar economic growth: in the 1990s, the number exceeded 60 million, which generated about one million waste tires every year. Until now, most waste tires were incinerated or disposed of in landfills, and it was common for people to bring them to cement plants and other facilities and pay 40-60 yen per tire to have them disposed of. Waste tires were positioned as "something you pay to throw away.

In 1999, however, Nippon Steel Corporation's Hirohata Works (Himeji City, Hyogo Prefecture) began a new experiment. They conducted a demonstration test of a recycling technology in which waste tires are directly used in the steelmaking process, and full-scale introduction of the technology was realized in 2000. At this steel mill, a new facility was built to feed the cut tires into the blast furnace, and a system was established whereby the carbon component (carbon black) contained in the tires is used as a reductant, while the steel wire contained as steel is used as a molten raw material and the rubber portion is pyrolyzed and reused as gas fuel. In this way, waste tires became useful as energy and raw materials for steelmaking, and their reputation changed completely from "chargeable waste" to "purchased resource.

Behind this technological shift was also the impact of the "Basic Law for Establishing a Recycling-based Society," which came into effect in 2000. Since that time, the Japanese government has made it a national policy to "reuse waste as much as possible as a resource," and encouraged the private sector to take action as well. In addition, the fact that landfill sites in urban and suburban areas were tightening and disposal costs were rising, and the steel industry was seeking new sources of fuel as part of its cost-cutting efforts, encouraged the promotion of recycling of waste tires.

However, not all was well. There are two main types of reuse of waste tires: material recycling, in which the tires are reprocessed as raw materials, and thermal recycling, in which they are burned to recover energy. At the time, material recycling accounted for about 36%, thermal recycling about 51%, and the remainder was classified as export of used tires or other. The problem was that material recycled products could not compete with new products on the market. Recycled rubber, rehabilitated tires, road surfacing materials, mats, and other products were not competitive in the market in terms of price, quality, and appearance, as they were not as good as new products. In addition, there were no unified quality standards, such as the Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS), to ensure the credibility of recycled products.

Under these circumstances, there was a tendency to bias toward "burning" waste tires, also from the standpoint of economic rationality. However, there was also a strong recognition that thermal recycling was the final means of recycling and that, given the finite nature of resources, priority should be given to reuse as a material. How to strike this balance had a significant impact on the recycling policies and business decisions of companies at the time.

Thus, the dramatic change in waste tire recycling in 2001 was proceeding amid a complex interplay of technological innovation, institutional design, and even market structure. The process of turning waste from "something to throw away" to "something to sell" strongly reflected the changing values of the times. Behind the seemingly humble material of waste tires existed a story of dynamic change at the intersection of resource recycling, economics, and environmental policy.