How do you dispose of worn out tyres?

[Cudzoziemiec]

It seems such a waste to simply throw them in the bin and know they'll end up as landfill. Presumably the rubber will rot, but what about the wire beading and the nylon content? Someone on here said they use them to cut tyre boots from, but the pair I've just removed are too frayed for that. It really was a case "my tyres and tubes are doing fine,  but the air is showing through." It's a shame no one retreads them, like car tyres.

[woollypigs]

Send a email to Betty at velo-re and she will make them into belts for you or other things.

[Cudzoziemiec]

That's an appealing idea, though I'm not at all sure these particular tyres have enough material left to become belts!

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I stitch them together into gimp suits.

[Biggsy]

Bicycle tyre tread is usually synthetic rather than natural rubber these days.  The casing is usually nylon or polycotton.

Extracting the steel beads would take too much energy to make sense, and the number of repair-boots that could be got from a single tyre will be more than enough for life.

I'm afraid I do just put them in the bin for landfill - though I will look into Woolypigs's suggestion.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I stitch them together into gimp suits.

I thought Bobb had been a bit quiet lately.

[teethgrinder]

I collect a few carrier bags full and load them into my panniers.
Then I cycle up to the Pennines and find a great big hill. There are plenty of big hills in the Pennines, but you want one where you can see for a very long way. It's better of there are lots of sheep.

Then I like to see how far I can roll them down the hill. When I get bored of that, I aim at the sheep. I always try to ring a sheep with an old tyre.

It's not very green, I admit. But good fun nonetheless and gets ride of my old tyres.









Just chuck 'em in the bin.

[teethgrinder]

I'm afraid I do just put them in the bin for landfill - though I will look into Woolypigs's suggestion.

I think I did once. If I remember, it was about £20 a go, which I thought was a bit steep for an old tyre. I'd rather have a bash at it myself for free and have the satisfaction of having something that I made as well.

It is a bit sad throwing tyres into landfill.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Teethgrinder has given me an idea. As I was walking home with the new tyres over my shoulder this morning, a charity collector (Friends of the Earth, a little less pushy and therefore more bearable than most) said she had thought they were hula hoops. A lick of bright paint and they could have a second life as a kid's toy! Alternatively, they could be used for cyclists' games of Pooh sticks. 

[Speshact]

When you have a few, paint them in the colours of the Olympic Rings and attach them to random bridges in emulation of the Olypmic Rings that are to besmirch adorn Tower Bridge in 2012.

[MSeries]

I put them in the bin, the chaps at the local recycling centre told me to.

[otherdave]

Last time I was up at the Pitlochry bike shop there was a woman asking for old tyres - she was going to make  flip flop shoes/sandles with them.

[Jaded]

I asked my local (car) tyre place if they would take them and they said roll them up and put them in the normal rubbish.

[Fab Foodie]

Bin 'em, life's too short.

[Alouicious]

Play hoop-la with the ducks on the canal.

You might win one.

[numbnuts]

I think most people throw them over the hedge 

[Arch]

I'm afraid I do just put them in the bin for landfill - though I will look into Woolypigs's suggestion.

I think I did once. If I remember, it was about £20 a go, which I thought was a bit steep for an old tyre. I'd rather have a bash at it myself for free and have the satisfaction of having something that I made as well.

It is a bit sad throwing tyres into landfill.

Making your own belt out of a tyre is easy. I have one, and have several old tyres ready to do more when I get round to it.  I don't have the necessary rivetting machine, so I use Brass paper fasteners, and will stick a patch of inner tube over the backs to stop them catching on stuff.

The trickiest bit is finding buckles - ok if you have an old belt to cut up, but I assumed I could pick up one or two at a haberdashers, and it turns out they aren't the sort of thing they sell.  I've bought a few belts at the poundshop in the end, but destroying a new belt to make a recycled one isn't really the right idea.  A leather punch is handy to pierce the holes.

[Efrogwr]

They take up a lot of space, so I  roll them up , and put them in the bin.

[MattH]

You can pick up buckles on eBay reasonably cheaply (like this).

Rivets are also available there, a setting tool costs about a fiver. It consists of a rod with a concave end and a disk with a concave surface - you assemble the rivet through the belt, put it on the disk, and hammer the rod onto it. Takes seconds to do, and is very easy.

Of course, spending about £15 on a bag of rivets, a setting tool and some buckles means you need to either use a lot of belts or be selling/giving them to people.

[Biggsy]

Extracting the steel beads would take too much energy to make sense

Could I be wrong about this?  Think of all the bike tyres in the world.  That's a lot of steel altogether.

(No steel in folding tyres, but folding tyres are very much the minority).

[border-rider]

I know they do it with car tyres in those plants that burn them for fuel.  I can't see it being worth the effort with bike tyres.  I suspect that if they were rounded up & collected from the waste stream en masse they could be burned & have the metal recovered too, but they must make up such a tiny proportion of landfill as to be very low down on the list of priorities.

[Cudzoziemiec]

It would presumably be worthwhile if they could be collected at one site prior to disposal. For instance, if they were subject to similar disposal regulations as electrical goods, so when you bought new tyres you left the old ones at the shop. Then from all the bike shops in one area it might be worth extracting the steel beading and burning the rest for fuel. Or selling the tread to handicrafts enterprises!

I'm afraid I do just put them in the bin for landfill - though I will look into Woolypigs's suggestion.

I think I did once. If I remember, it was about £20 a go, which I thought was a bit steep for an old tyre. I'd rather have a bash at it myself for free and have the satisfaction of having something that I made as well.

It is a bit sad throwing tyres into landfill.

Making your own belt out of a tyre is easy. I have one, and have several old tyres ready to do more when I get round to it.  I don't have the necessary rivetting machine, so I use Brass paper fasteners, and will stick a patch of inner tube over the backs to stop them catching on stuff.

The trickiest bit is finding buckles - ok if you have an old belt to cut up, but I assumed I could pick up one or two at a haberdashers, and it turns out they aren't the sort of thing they sell.  I've bought a few belts at the poundshop in the end, but destroying a new belt to make a recycled one isn't really the right idea.  A leather punch is handy to pierce the holes.

Only so many belts any person needs, I find. Unless it has become fashionable to wear more than one at once?!

[dasmoth]

Only so many belts any person needs, I find. Unless it has become fashionable to wear more than one at once?!

You think we should start plugging the Michelin Man look for next season, then?

I too find it a bit sad to bin a tyre that's too worn to keep TEH FAERIE at bay, but still looks tyre-shaped at a glance.  In practice, they seem to accumulate in the cellar.  At least there's no longer a pair of well-used hamsterskins hanging over the kitchen radiator...

[citoyen]

All my old tyres from the last 15 years (not that many, tbh) are in the garage waiting for someone to invent a bicycle tyre recycling facility.

d.

[Alouicious]

The belt idea is a goodun,

Do you have matching earings?


My friends and I used to cut them into short sections and construct elaborate 'marble runs', with lengths of drain pipe.......

last week....