Aren’t tires toxic? How will that effect my flowers and vegetables?
There are organic puritans still quoting an international environmental magazine, Organic Gardening, Jul-Aug 1997, article headline “TIRES ARE TOXIC" "WARNING: Using old automobile tires around your plants (in any form) is hazardous to the health of those plants!" It then went on to justify the article from two sources, USDA researcher and compost expert Rufus L. Chaney, Ph.D., claiming that zinc released from tires is toxic to plants, and “A recent study in Australia claiming tires are toxic to petunias & impatiens.”
Mr. Farber contacted Dr. Chaney soon after the article appeared. Dr. Chaney told him that this magazine miss-quoted him. He said that he knows of only one toxin in the rubber of a tire in its solid state, and that is zinc. Zinc leached from burned tires, ground-up tires and the tire dust washed and blown from highways is toxic to some plants and many aquatic plants and animals in acidic soil and water (pH 6 or below). He said humans require zinc, and zinc is used in fertilizers to neutralize alkaline soils. He also said that zinc will not escape from a solid tire, but when a tire is left out in the weather for a few decades (30 years or more) it might decay and release its zinc.
Mr. Farber tried but could not locate the "recent study in Australia" but from his test gardens, he has photo proof of petunias and impatiens vigorously overflowing the same ten tire planters and in the same soil (adding only yearly loss) every year for more than thirty years.
Consider this: From the 2007 U.S. Geological Survey, "each year, approximately one million tons of tire rubber dust is washed and blown from our highways." This must integrate with our water, soil and air. No doubt, a substantial amount of tire dust is accumulating in everyone's "organic garden".
Mr. Farber is aware of another scary article. “Toxic Components Leaching from Tire Rubber" is the headline to a six page research study including text, charts and graphs proving their points, published on line, 3 May 2007 by Springer Science + Business Media, University of Goteborg, Sweden. It had nothing to do with gardening in tires. It was about zinc from tire dust killing bugs that fish feed on. Their conclusions were the same as Dr. Chaney's. Solid tires do not leach zinc.
If anyone has documented proof that shows a danger of toxicity from solid tires, Mr. Farber would like to be contacted with that information. Mr. Farber has been using tires for a container for his vegetqables for over 30 years. If there is legitimate evidence that this practice is harmful he would want to know for his own health as well as for those who have planted their vegetables in recycled tires at his recommendation. You may contact Mr. Farber at retired@tirecrafting.com.
Tires are made from petroleum which is toxic, therefore tires are toxic! How can you justify gardening in them?!
Everything in life is a potential hazard. The trick is to research beyond headlines and weigh benefits against risks.
When tires are burned, otherwise harmless chemicals mix and change form to create compounds which are harmful. It is now proven that the release of excessive amounts of hydrocarbons from fossil fuels is contributing to a myriad adverse effects to the environment and public health. Products from crude-oil are at the top of that list. No other country is more at fault than the U.S. with transportation in the forefront. Commerce is moving goods across our nation one semi tractor trailer at a time, each requiring its own hydrocarbon spewing power plant Private transportation fares no better. Added to this are the hydrocarbons released in the manufacture of fuel, tires, and asphalt highways. There are solutions to these problems and we must fight for them. But that is not the issue here.
Used tires already exist and in their solid state they are as safe or safer than any other construction material. The process and the result of this global discard nightmare being recycled by industry, whether grinding them up for road base, burning them as fuel, or recouping the oil, releases more hydrocarbons while costing the global economy billions of dollars for tire cleanup and commercial recycling. Modifying tires to create green space and home gardening available to everyone would not only absorbs hydrocarbons, it could well be the key to salvation for practically every family on the planet that is otherwise excluded from adequate sustenance. Personal tire recycling potential benefits far outweigh all perceived hazards. A portion of tire taxes for tire disposal, ought to be channeled in this direction.
Massive tire stock-pile fire publicity has heightened our concern. Most industrial materials are flammable. Wood chips will ignite from a discarded cigarette much faster than tires will. According to one California government web site “Tire fires are most often started by arson” and they become combustible starting at around 100 C. or over 200 F. (1)
Minimal and short term crafting stock storage is advised. Common sense and fire codes should be observed with anything we do.
You get black when working with, or playing on tires.
Most of the black is road grime. After they are scrubbed with detergent, you can no longer rub black from most of them. For assurance against this, paint the play equipment with a mix of about 70% black exterior semi-gloss latex house paint with water.
Discard tires attract rodents, bugs, and disease.
This is true with irresponsible tire disposal and storage. Collect crafting material only as needed. If you must store them, keep them dry and inaccessible to critters if possible. If they must be where they accumulate water, add a squirt of bio-degradable household detergent inside each tire. At least once a month, dump the water, re-stack and add more detergent. Once crafted, critter habitat is eliminated.
Tire crafted products are not helping to solve the disposal problem. All they are doing is postponing the inevitable. Eventually they will end up in the landfill.
This is probably the case but not the point. Tirecrafting's focus is on quality of life improvement. Recycling is the means. A tire is 50% trapped air. Just cutting it up reduces its transport and landfill volume by half and eliminates its pest nursery capabilities.
Postponing the inevitable for extended use is justifiable. One example of recycled tire longevity is in the countless crude but efficient flood and erosion control tire retaining walls throughout the harshest environments of our southwestern deserts. Many were constructed in the 1920s and are still doing their job with minimal sign of decay, some continuing to protect ghost towns.
Of the 58 productive tire crafted gardening containers in our yard, 36 are more than thirty years old, including ten decorated flower containers often mistaken for Mexican pottery. Yet, when Mexican pottery is left out, it will freeze and break the first winter in northern Utah.
Using tire crafted planters in place of those designed to occupy the landfill within three years, not only extends the life of the tires, each one keeps ten (also petrolium manufactured) store-bought planters from the landfill as well.
If cities were to support and promote responsible self-sufficient home gardening through personal recycle training, and include at each trash transfer station a "put-&-take" facility for salvageables, and support free tire scrap curbside disposal, cities could be much greener, cleaner and communal cooperative environments.
Excerpt from the EPA Federal Register Document 9/16/98, Vol. 63, #179, Part 1-PREAMBLE, "It is the national policy to prefer pollution prevention. whenever feasible. Pollution that cannot be prevented should be recycled; pollution that cannot be prevented or recycled should be treated in an environmentally safe manner. Disposal should be employed only as a last resort."
Tire crafted products are ugly and households that use them look trashy, degrading themselves and the neighborhood. Zoning ordinances should ban them.
It's true, in their original form they are offensive! (Check our ideas on ways to make them a beautiful part of your landscape!) But many are attempts at home improvement with what's at hand. These same yards will probably look no better without them. Most of these yards would improve if they had community support, the means and knowledge.
We will always have ten percent hard-core trashers. Ninety percent of people desire to clean up after themselves. Within that ninety percent, there are a percentage that will also clean up after others if they have the means and support.
It would be cheaper for Government to help the ninety percent to clean up after themselves, rather than trying to enforce laws that restrict everyone. A restriction to reduce trashing only encourages it. "It's them against us". Banning materials does not solve problems. Education and a helping hand can.
By teaching responsible personal recycling with local businesses making discards and surplus available to the public and local government using the tire tax for what it was promised when the law was passed, creating 'free and available disposal of tires and their scrap, not only would these same families be more willing to make their residence attractive, these free options could improve all of our lives.
Banning tire crafting would deprive all of us 'from discovering the vast potential of this under explored resource.
Tire crafting is labor intensive.
In our lives, the things we value and remember the most are those worthwhile projects and the fun things that we put our own sweat into. Not the vicarious entertainment and stuff we paid the most money for. It does take time, effort and imagination to do it, but it is a low-tech skill, that by learning the basics, most of us can accomplish. As skills improve, creativeness grows and self-esteem blossoms. Time is one commodity that most families with inadequate funds and sustenance, world wide, have lots of.
To progressive leaders, tire crafting is the answer to many social and environmental problems.
For many of us it offers an affordable, beneficial reprieve from the mental stresses and lack of exercise in our daily lives.
For the numerous who have been otherwise excluded from gardening, it is a blessing.
For many others, a home business with minimal overhead, where the whole family can participate in creating and selling worthwhile products from discard materials, it is a dream come true.
Tirecrafting is not for everyone, nor is it the ultimate answer. Tirecrafting skills give you innumerable options you never had before. Everyone should at least be aware that this resource exists and of the magnitude of its potential.
“Paul Farber's claims of converting discard tires into products capable of fulfilling social and environmental needs neglected by all other means, are ludicrous self-serving bloated boasts to sell his books".
The more outlandish any claim, the heavier the burden of proof. Just the suggestion of personal tire recycling is offensive to many, and talking seldom changes minds. Self discovery of Tirecrafting's potential is much more effective. Once witnessed, there is a miraculous opinion transformation as these converts are able to relate these products to solving their own problems and fulfilling their own desires.
If we are serious about the public adopting "Urban Greening", "Home-Gardening Available to Everyone" and "Self-Reliance via Recycling &Conservation" programs, then we must provide a "Discovery Garden" where the public can discover, on their own, the value of these products, projects and programs.
We must prove to government and industry that it is in everyone's best interest to provide responsible personal recycling education, and support recyclable materials scavenging, and convenient, free, craft scrap disposal.
First, you must know whether your project requires steel belted or non-steel belted tires. Our book gives this information.
Steel belted radial tires have replaced non-steel belted radial and bias tires for street use. Therefore, steel belted discards are more common and are available at most tire dealers. If you tell the manager that you intend to cut them up for flower containers, they will gladly give them to you, as their company must pay to dispose of them.
Non-steel belted tires take more imagination to find. They are still being made for auto spares and for trailers with odd size wheels. Tires for off road vehicles such as, race cars, farm implement, all terrain vehicles and golf carts, are all non steel belted. Once in a while auto tire dealers get them in. If you request, some managers will set them aside for you. Other sources include auto race tracks, farm implement and ATV tire dealers, salvage yards, old tire storage stacks, vacant lots, around farm and silage pits, etc. Do not trespass. Asking permission will yield a greater harvest.
When searching a large tire stack for non steel belted tires, it is easy to miss them. Patty Shores of Redding California solved this problem with a cheap metal detector. Every tread that causes a beep is steel belted. The ones that do not, are not.
Feedback from industry and merchant approached about sponsoring Tirecrafting - "All you are marketing is information. That information is not only controversial, it is competing with commerce. No product, no profit. Not interested!"
A profit on every item is not always good business. More than thirty years of tire recycling hands-on and teaching experience, as well as testimony from many Tirecrafting converts, have revealed this anomaly:
Tirecrafting is a lure toward self-reliance. The vast opportunities gained from free materials personally converted to products that are either superior to their commercial competitors, or fulfill desires neglected by all other means, upholds this theory very well. However, these options have covertly changed our priorities. All of these new options must be supported.
Although we now manage our own home garden, make our own humus through composting, and are trading plants, seeds, bulbs, cuttings, etc., we are also buying more plants, seeds, potting mixes, fertilizers, power crafting tools, gardening tools, painting supplies, art supplies, ropes, swivels, screws, and glues, as well as back yard greenhouses and micro irrigation systems, and on and on and on!
The point being that we now have the knowledge, skills and materials to become independent, but we have also become gardening, crafting and landscaping addicts. Our creative juices are stimulating the economy much more now than ever before.
Inadequate gardening space, time, funds, health, knowledge and/or skills are the excuses why more than 75% of potential urban home gardeners are not active participants.
If the horticulture, arts &crafts, and home improvement industries were to sponsor "Self Reliance thru Recycling & Conservation" how-to programs and give away their surplus and discard inventories, these increased quality of life improving options would create whole new legions of gardening, landscaping and crafting addicts constantly desiring to upgrade, while the "give-away" industries are creating new markets, saving surplus inventory disposal costs and being praised for their humanity and environmental enhancement philanthropy.