Friday, November 28, 2008
Endless Battle
last year in the United States there was over five million tires purchased. Less than three million can be accounted for. Today, United States only recycles ten percent of their tires. fifty percent are land filled, and the other forty percent are incinerated for electricity. The State of Vermont has on average, two hundred thousand tires stock piled each day. These humongous tire piles we have in California, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are a disgrace. In august of 99, there was a massive fire at a Ohio tire recycling facility. They had roughly twenty million tires in mountain form. Arson's set one of the piles ablaze as a joke, the fire spread to several other piles. The fire lasted five days, it burned five million tires. The harmful gasses and deep black smoke was released into our atmosphere. Reporters claim that the smoke was carried by the wind to nearly sixty miles away. The total clean up cost was more than thirty million dollars and endless effects on our country, good and bad. Had our government taken a stronger stand on landfill safety, this would have never happened. Not only does stockpiling pose as a fire hazard, it also pose as a disease breading ground. Recycling tires make for a profitable industry. I my eyes there should be a real controlled recycling facility in every state and stockpiling should be bane.
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The Ticonderoga Paper Mill in New York was trying to pass a bill making their primary source for fuel burning old tires. The government in Vermont had a huge problem with this, because like you said the chemicals that are emitted from burning the tires are extremely harmful to human health. The Paper Mill had a filter that they said would prevent the toxins from being emitted, but it was insufficient, so Vermont legislators offered to foot the bill for a new filtration system, but the Paper Mill wouldn't allow it. As far as I know they still aren't allowed to burn tires for fuel, any hopefully it stays that way, because the toxins that they will produce will come right across the lake into Vermont.
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