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Sudbury program recycles old tires of all sizes

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As a way to prevent old tires from making their way to landfill sites in Greater Sudbury, reThink Green and B2B Industrial have teamed up to create a tire drop-off program.

The old tires will be repurposed into high-quality blasting mats.

“B2B works with another company that we own, which is called A-1 Blasting Mats, and it builds blasting mats for the mining, construction, military, forestry industries," said Kevin Fitzgerald of B2B Industrial.

"We also make some heavy, dense mats for heavy equipment like cranes and other equipment that may be used to go across roads.”

David St. Georges of reThink Green the program has other benefits for the environment.

“What happens during that process is that they are repurposed, reused and that gas is still sequestered and we don’t have to create fresh materials," St. Georges said.

"We aren’t creating fresh rubber, fresh carbon, which is massive for the environment.”

In Ontario alone, more than 12 million tires reach the end of the line each year.

“For most people it’s one and done -- you use your tires for a lifecycle and you throw them out," St. Georges said.

"As these tires degrade, they will continue to be on this Earth long past you and I. There’s a lot of gases and carbon CO 2 that is still being emitted.”

There are currently two drop-off locations: Rainbow Concrete and A-1 Blasting Mats in Sturgeon Falls. They expect that in the next 12-18 months, they will process between 500,000 and 750,000 tires.

B2B Industrial and reThink Green said they are planning to expand the program to other areas.

“We are currently looking to have another location up near Gogama and ask out in the Sault and down towards the Barrie/Parry Sound area so that we can try to coordinate getting more tires from the north into centralized locations for drop off and pickup,” Fitzgerald said.

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