1. By: Matthew Myose and Arturo Puentes
Tires
By: Matthew Myose
and
Arturo Puentes

2. Background
Tires are used by many different forms of transportation today. Automobiles, bicycles, aircraft, and tractors are just a few. Tires for most vehicles are pneumatic; air is held under pressure inside the tire. Until recently, pneumatic tires had an inner tube to hold the air pressure, but now pneumatic tires are designed to form a pressure seal with the rim of the wheel.

3. Timeline
(1839) American inventor Charles Goodyear discovered the process of strengthening rubber, known as vulcanization or curing, by accident.
(1845) Scottish inventor Robert Thomson developed the pneumatic tire with inner tube, but attracted little interest.
(1880s) The pneumatic tire was reinvented by another Scotsman, John Boyd Dunlop, and became immediately popular with bicyclists.
(1909) W.C. State of the Goodyear Tire Company invents the tire making machine, which drastically improved the production rate of tires.

4. Materials Tires simply began as hardened rubber.
As technology, and the need for better and more efficient tires progressed, tire manufacturers now combine the rubber with various chemicals to improve tread life and grip.
Developments continue to be made. Experimentation with airless tires are taking place today.

5. There are at least one billion tires discarded around the world
each and every year.
CURRENT DISTRIBUTION OF SCRAP TIRES
•  50% to landfill sites and dumps
•  40% incinerated
•  10% recycled

6. Recycling
Most discarded tires were destined to be burned. However, since the recognition by meteorologists of pending earth warming trends, burning tires is quickly becoming unacceptable and in some countries illegal.
Many of the waste tires are simply shredded and buried in landfills.
Tire piles serve as breeding grounds of disease infected rodents and hot beds for dangerous and deadly insects.

7. Recycling
When recycled, tires can be broken down into their original state of rubber, steel, and fiber.
Also, tires can be broken down into various objects made of rubber, for example, playground materials, shoes, and even the roads that we drive on today.

8. Bibliography http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Tire.html