[China Economic Net] A realistic problem facing China’s comprehensive utilization of waste and old tire resources at present is the country’s low tire retreading rate.
"Accelerating the development of tire retreading is an important way for China to make up scarce rubber resources, as well as an important method of realizing that waste and old tire comprehensive utilization improves rubber resource utilization efficiencies,” said Zhu Jun, head of China Tyre Retreading, Repairing & Recycling Association.
Along with the rapid development of national economy and the gradual improvement of people’s living standard, China has become a big consumer of rubber resources. Statistics show that among the hundreds kinds of rubber products, tire production takes up about 70% of total rubber consumption in China. Up to 2009, the number of motor vehicles of China was 187 million, of which the number of automobiles was 76.19 million, which produced more than 230 million waste and old tires.
"Waste and old tires are still precious resources.” Zhu Jun said that many tire companies abroad retread old tires with relatively good quality for two to three times to save resources. Regarding the realistic application, if the technology for old tire retreading is advanced enough, the wear life of retreaded tires can be as high as 120% to 130% of that of new tires with the same specifications, but the energy and material consumption of retreaded tires is only one fourth and the price is only a half of new tires.
At present, China’s tire production and sales has been the world’s No. 1 for eight consecutive years. In 2010, both the production and sales volume of vehicles in China were over 18 million. Zhu Jun said that looking at the development trend, the number of waste and old tires from China will go on increasing every year, therefore we must guide the scientific and reasonable production of tire retreading enterprises. We must also encourage consumers to use retreaded tires, so as to create a favorable external environment for the development of tire retreading industry, extend the application scope of retreaded tires and relieve the demand pressure of rubber resources caused by increasing tire demand.
"A realistic problem facing the current comprehensive utilization of waste and old tires in China is low utilization ratio of waste and old tires and the low retreading ratio of old tires." Zhu Jun said that according to statistics from relevant departments, in 2009 China produced more than 230 million waste and old tires, in which only 13 million old tires could be retreaded, accounting for 5% of the total numbers.
If we can improve the retreading quantity of tires effectively and make further use of the waste tires that cannot be retreaded through rubber resource harmless processing, it will actively relieve China’s shortage of rubber resources, drive the development of relevant industries and promote energy saving and emission reduction. It is also the requirement of developing circular economy.
To accelerate the development of the tire retreading industry and improve the retreading rate, first of all we must help enterprises figuring out the issue of old tire sources.
After years’ development, China’s waste and old tire comprehensive utilization industry has made certain achievements in production scale, utilization level, technology and equipment level, and products comprehensive utilization, and has formed a complete industrial chain that meets scientific development requirement, and ranges from old tire retreading and reproducing, waste tire into reclaimed rubber, waste tire into rubber powder, to waste tire into fuel oil and carbon black through pyrogenation.
In old tire retreading field, China has had certain number of tire retreading products and facilities, and even precure tread has been exported to developed countries such as the U.S. and Canada, indicating that China has made great technological breakthrough in old tire retreading.
"However, we should also see that the tire retreading rate of developed countries has reached around 45% on average,” Zhu Jun told the reporter. According to the investigation on several enterprises, there are relatively scarce old tire resources for retreading in China, and enterprises’ import of old tires from overseas is not smooth too, thus lots of enterprises engaging in tire retreading are in an awkward situation just like "making bricks without straw.”
Zhu Jun suggested that in order to promote the development of old tire retreading industry and improve the circular utilization rate of tires, we must investigate and solve the problem of old tire sources without delay and help tire retreading enterprise improve production capacity.
The first is to further reinforce quality management on new tires from the new tire manufacturing sector, try to improve product quality and extend the lifetime of carcass. "In case the majority of domestic old tires can be retreaded, lots of rubber resources will be saved every year," Zhu Jun said.
The second is to guide and regulate consumers’ use of tires and improve their awareness on comprehensive use of tire resources. As lots of tires in China have such problems as overload, over-speed and over-time, which can easily lead to overheated carcass and severe tire wear, such old tires can hardly be used for retreading. Hence, we should prevent consumers from "using tires to waste,” and carry out tire circular use, energy saving and emission reduction, low-carbon and environment protection in real earnest.
The third is to accelerate the construction and regulation of waste and old tire recycling system, regulate recycling networks, explore diversified recycling mechanism and realize the highly efficient connection between production and demand of waste and old tires.
The fourth is to make further study on relevant policies, encourage enterprises with old tire import pilot qualification to make full use of the existing policies and import old tire resources that are scarce in China; rigidly close, shut down, rectify and reform or eliminate those tire retreading enterprises that cannot meet the requirements of environment protection, energy consumption and quality indicators.
