Transforming Old Tires into Shoes

This fall, you can wear footwear that's green - and be an environmental steward.

Timberland Co. of New Hampshire is becoming the first shoe manufacturer to use recycled rubber from discarded tires to create two shoe collections that will debut this fall.

Timberland is working with Green Rubber Inc., a subsidiary of the Kuala-Lumpur based Petra Group, to make "a new source of rubber compound made from waste tires through a non-toxic, environmentally conscious devulcanization process called DeLink," according to Timberland's Web site.

Vulcanized rubber is created by adding chemicals -  including sulphur -  to virgin rubber, makes rubber stronger and more durable. But the process also makes the rubber almost impossible to recycle.

Now Green Rubber has an eight-minute process that devulcanizes the rubber, allowing the rubber to be recycled into new products. With more than seven billion tires sitting in landfills worldwide, discarded tires is a huge environmental issue.

Timberland says it hopes to make rubber a more sustainable resource working with Green Rubber.

The New Hampshire boot maker will be the first shoe manufacturer to commercialize Green Rubber technology, using the recycled rubber in the outsoles of more than 200,000 pairs of shoes. The shoes will be a combination of the Green Rubber compound and virgin rubber compound for an outsole that is 42 percent recycled tire crumb.

 "Green Rubber is positioned to have a major impact on the global rubber industry; managing tire waste can now become both a commercially viable and eco-conscious process,"  said Jeffrey Swartz, Timberland's chief executive in a statement. The photo on the right is from Timberland's Web site.

What does METRO do with its old, non-usable bus tires?

We lease the tires, so when they go bad, they go back to the leasing company. Leasing saves money over buying tires.

For all other vehicles that are non-revenue - for example, police cars or fleet vehicles - we pay a contractor to pick up old or threadbare tires that can no longer be used. METRO is required to punch a hole in these tires before having them picked up by a contractor, so those tires can't be sold as new.

Just as consumers pay a fee to dispose of car batteries, METRO pays a fee to dispose of these tires.

Up to now, there's never been a market for discarded tires, say our operations folks.