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00:02 This is one of Nigeria's first tire recycling businesses.
00:05 Workers start by ripping out the steel wires
00:09 so the rubber can be cut, shredded,
00:13 and turned into bricks for driveways and playgrounds.
00:18 - This is softer and actually a bit bouncier.
00:22 - Ifetolaporunsewe started free recycle back in 2018.
00:27 Now, her company recycles hundreds of tires per day.
00:31 - We have over 400,000 tires stockpiled on site.
00:35 - But it's only a tiny slice of the problem.
00:38 Humans throw out around a billion tires every year.
00:41 Recycling them gets expensive and complicated.
00:45 So in most countries, they just pile up in landfills.
00:48 And here in Nigeria, they can help spread malaria.
00:52 - We have stagnant water that can then become
00:55 a breeding ground for mosquitoes.
00:58 - So why is it so hard to recycle tires?
01:01 And why are tire graveyards so dangerous?
01:04 More than half of all the cars in Nigeria
01:09 are in and around its biggest city, Lagos.
01:12 So there's a good chance old tires will end up
01:17 with a roadside mechanic like Samwe.
01:18 - Maybe you are going on the road, you have flat tire,
01:23 I will repair it for you.
01:24 - He saves any tire he can't fix to sell to Free Recycle.
01:29 Samwe and other shop owners, like Adams,
01:31 make about 30 cents for each tire.
01:34 - It's good, it's good, it's good.
01:35 Because this tire is condemned before.
01:38 Cannot use for anything before before.
01:40 So for now, I can sell for freeway company.
01:45 - Today's haul will be stored in the lot
01:47 behind Free Recycle's two and a half acre facility.
01:50 When Ifetolapa wanted to launch the business,
01:53 no one believed she could make money out of a pile of tires.
01:57 - They kind of looked at us like we're crazy.
01:59 And generally that was the reaction.
02:01 - But now she has more than 100 full-time employees.
02:04 And the business makes about 16 cents
02:06 for every recycled tire.
02:08 - My first tire, the first baby was recycled
02:12 in October 2020.
02:14 - The first challenge is removing the steel wires
02:18 embedded within the rubber.
02:20 So one of her first investments was this machine
02:22 called the de-beater,
02:24 which removes them in about 20 seconds.
02:27 Next, the tires head to this chopper,
02:29 which cuts each one into four or five pieces,
02:32 making them easier to work with.
02:33 The company can process about 150 car tires per hour.
02:39 The same things that make tires durable
02:42 also make them hard to recycle.
02:44 In the 1800s, Charles Goodyear accidentally dropped rubber
02:49 treated with sulfur onto a stove
02:51 and discovered a process to harden the material
02:53 called vulcanization.
02:55 It made rubber stronger
02:57 and resistant to extreme temperatures.
03:00 Exactly what cars need out of tires.
03:03 As more Americans started driving,
03:04 rubber production exploded in the early 20th century.
03:08 And most of it came from plantations in Southeast Asia.
03:11 And then World War II happened.
03:13 - The verdict is in on rubber.
03:15 The enemy now has over 90%
03:20 of the world's source of raw rubber.
03:22 - The Allies needed a lot of rubber
03:24 for trucks, cars, and planes.
03:26 The US asked its major manufacturers
03:28 to find an additional source.
03:30 - Synthetic rubber, one of wartime's newest industries,
03:34 one of America's modern miracles.
03:36 - Today's tires are a blend of natural and synthetic rubber,
03:39 reinforced with metal and plastic fibers
03:42 to make them more durable.
03:43 But no matter how tough they are, they don't last forever.
03:47 And all of the old rubber quickly piled up.
03:50 By the end of the 20th century,
03:51 the US had accumulated well over a billion old tires.
03:56 In landfills, they can leach toxins.
03:58 And when buried, they can sometimes trap methane
04:00 or other gases and literally float to the surface.
04:04 They also burn fairly easily.
04:06 In 1987, about 30 acres of tires caught fire in Colorado.
04:11 It took almost a week to put them out.
04:13 And the incident brought this kind of waste
04:15 into the national spotlight.
04:17 Within a few years, all but two states
04:19 passed laws that helped fund a new tire scrap industry.
04:22 By 2021, the US had reduced the number
04:25 of stockpiled tires to just 50 million.
04:28 Now, America burns a third of its used tires
04:30 to fuel cement kilns and paper mills.
04:33 And another third are turned into rubber surfaces
04:35 like artificial turf.
04:37 Less than 20% ends up in landfills.
04:39 But in developing countries like Nigeria,
04:43 tire waste is still a growing problem.
04:46 The country ranks in the bottom 10% worldwide
04:48 for recycling and sustainability.
04:51 But Free Recycle is aiming to change that.
04:53 At the factory outside of Lagos,
04:56 the shredder rips tires into chunks.
04:58 These drums crush them into even smaller pieces.
05:01 Workers rake the remnants over vibrating screens.
05:05 And large vacuums prevent rubber dust
05:08 from filling the factory air.
05:10 Pieces five millimeters and smaller fall through.
05:15 Larger chunks go back through the process
05:17 and get crushed again.
05:18 Magnets pull out any remaining metal shards.
05:22 - So here is the fiber separator
05:25 where the fibers have been separated from the chrome rubber.
05:29 - These are reinforcement fibers,
05:30 usually made of plastic, nylon,
05:32 or some other synthetic material.
05:34 Now, all that remains is rubber.
05:36 The final vibrating screen separates the different sizes.
05:41 Powder, which will give a softer feel
05:45 suitable for playgrounds and gyms,
05:47 and three to five millimeter crumbles,
05:50 which are durable enough to use for driveways.
05:53 To make those pavers,
05:54 rubber crumbs twirl inside heated mixers.
05:57 A polyurethane binder helps hold everything together.
06:01 It took a long time to figure out the right ratio
06:03 that could work in Nigeria's tropical savanna climate.
06:06 - A mix or a formulation that would work in,
06:09 let's say, Europe, wouldn't necessarily work here.
06:12 So, you know, you just have to find what works best.
06:16 - Dyes adjust the color.
06:17 A small layer of the colored mixture
06:20 goes into the mold first.
06:21 Then the rest of the brick is filled in
06:25 with undyed rubber mix,
06:27 which helps cut down on manufacturing costs.
06:29 Then it is pressed down by hand and loaded onto trays.
06:33 - After loading it, it's being rolled to the hydraulic press
06:40 where we press all the mixed material
06:44 for proper compression.
06:46 - Finally, it sits in an oven to dry for up to eight hours.
06:51 Nigeria's unreliable electric grid
06:59 means the factory has to make most of the power it uses.
07:03 - 80% of our power is generated internally
07:06 from diesel power generating sets.
07:08 - Workers tap the dried pavers out of the molds.
07:11 On a typical day, they make roughly enough pieces
07:14 to cover an entire tennis court.
07:16 Every tire produces about 25
07:18 of these dog-bone-shaped rubber bricks.
07:20 Now they're ready to ship.
07:22 Scrap tires have become a $12 billion global industry.
07:28 In the US, Europe, and Japan, most get recycled
07:32 and many are burned to create energy.
07:34 Tire-based fuel costs less than natural gas
07:36 and burns cleaner than coal,
07:38 but it still produces emissions
07:40 comparable to other fossil fuels.
07:42 In another method called pyrolysis,
07:44 tires are heated to extreme temperatures without oxygen.
07:47 Advocates claim it's the cleanest way to recycle them,
07:50 but it requires a lot of energy,
07:53 leaving small profit margins.
07:54 In the US, a third of recycled tires
07:57 become new surfaces in homes and playgrounds
08:00 or mulch for gardens.
08:01 In response to public concerns
08:04 about shredded rubber leaking toxins,
08:06 one US federal agency said it couldn't prove
08:09 there were any health risks,
08:10 but it recommended that kids should not eat the rubber.
08:13 Sound advice.
08:14 Back in Lagos, Free Recycle's top-selling items
08:19 are paving stones used in playgrounds like this one
08:22 at an international school.
08:23 We've been very happy with their service.
08:27 The product's good.
08:28 The thick rubber provides a nice bounce
08:30 for children at play,
08:32 but also makes repairs and additions easier.
08:34 If you want to add more surfaces or add more structures,
08:38 you just remove it, and when you're finished, put it back.
08:42 While Free Recycle aims to eliminate
08:44 all of Nigeria's tire dumps,
08:46 for now, this waste stream is still growing.
08:48 But that's not Ifetalapo's only concern.
08:52 The mother of two is raising a family
08:54 and a business together.
08:56 She says Free Recycle is on the verge
08:57 of becoming profitable,
08:59 and she continues building it brick by brick.
09:01 I think she's like a natural fixer.
09:05 She saw a problem.
09:07 She found a solution.
09:09 Charming, but she's disturbingly efficient.
09:14 She plans to expand throughout the country,
09:16 as well as Rwanda, Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Kenya.
09:19 I would like to see us tackling more waste,
09:24 different types of waste,
09:26 your paper waste, electronic waste,
09:28 pet bottle.
09:30 That's why our tagline is "Waste to Wealth."
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