Incineration

A tyre contains energy that can be released through incineration. Therefore, more and more scrap tyres end up as solid fuel. Tyres can be used as a replacement for coal in coal-burning power plants, but are usually used in cement kilns.

To be able to use tyres as solid fuel, significant investments must be made to limit the atmospheric pollution they create. Recently, the EU has increased the requirements in directive 2000/76/EC and has established strict standards to the discharge of atmospheric pollution from these types of burning processes and to the content of the remaining slag.

Incineration in cement kilns unfortunately absorbs an increasing amount of scrap tyres, but there is uncertainty as to the environmental aspects of incineration. It is important to understand the fact that burning 1 kilo of rubber yields the same amount of energy as burning 1 kilo of oil and that 6 kilos of oil have been used in the process of producing 1 kilo of tyres. Therefore, the incineration of tyres is a waste of a valuable raw material.

Read more about this in our section on Life Cycle Assessments