Scrap tyres buried underground could reduce irrigation costs
IF SCIENTISTS at the Center for
Irrigation Technology (CIT), at
the California State University,
Fresno succeed, the millions of
scrap tyres that litter the landscape would well be buried
underground and serve to conserve water and reduce the need
for irrigation, whether in Califbrnia golf courses or grass-lands in Africa or croplands in India.
Bob Hendershot, president
of Tire Farms, of Santa Rosa, a
company which disposes of old
tyres, maintains that water collecting in the wells of the tyres
would slash the cost of keeping
the golf courses green (New
Scientist, Vol 145, No 1974).
In Hendershot's Rain Trap
system - which be has patented
- old tyres are split around the middle,
and buried a foot underground. Water
collects in the half tyres, preventing it
from seeping away. A typical 18-hole
golf course would use up 1.2 million
scrap tyres, and the owner would save
between us $10,000-70,000 a year in
irrigation costs, claims Hendershot.
CIT scientists have begury to test the
feasibility of the scheme. They have
buried tyres in 3 different configurations, and left a fourth plot empty as a
control. Researchers will water the plots
through the spring, then stop irrigation
and see how long the grass stays green in
each plot. Tests will assess how much
water could be saved by the tyres, and
whether half tyres will work their way to
the surface as whole ones tend to do in
rubbish dumps.
Some 60 per cent of the 250 million
tyres discarded in the us each year are
dumped. Says Hendershot, "If we planted tyres in only 34 per cent of the new
golf courses built each year in USA, we
would use up cvery available scrap tyre."
Meanwhile, a British firm,
Fibrescreed, has developed recycled
rubber products for use in road construction, reports PTi Science Service.
The company has produced a rubber
chip material which can be used for
repairing cracks in highways and airport runways.
And, in southern England, a project
is underway to utilise old tyres in coastal
protection. If the project, which among
other things investigates the action of
salt water on the tyres, succeeds, a tyre-
reef will be built in Poole Harbour on
the Dorset coast in southern England as
a protection against the tides.
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