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Bridgestone is aspiring to lead the tire industry into a waste-free culture in which tire materials never end up in a landfill or river.
Bridgestone America’s Wilson, N.C., tire manufacturing plant is in its third year as a zero waste landfill plant. That is an outstanding achievement, but perhaps the most important aspect of it is that it moves Bridgestone and the entire tire industry closer to a waste-free tire industry, said Plant Manager Michael Darr.
“That’s a long-term vision that coincides with our overall sustainability goals,” Darr said.
With corporate targets that include reducing CO2 emissions, VOCs, waste, energy and water use, Bridgestone looks at sustainability from all stages—during sourcing, in manufacture, in use, and post-use, Darr said. “We focus on sustainability from the way we manufacture to the types of products we design to help the consumer eliminate waste when they’re done with that tire by giving it another life.”
Sustainable Materials Sourcing. One company objective is to achieve and design tires made of sustainable materials. “In 2012, we displayed at the world auto show in Paris a concept tire that was made of completely sustainable materials. No petroleum products were in the tire at all,” said Director of Environmental Management Greer Tidwell. Although that tire is not yet ready for commercialization, being able to make the concept tire goes miles toward its eventual final development.
“It shows that we’re headed in that direction and we can get there,” Tidwell said.
“A concrete step that we’ve taken is that some of the latex that we use in making our agricultural tires in the Des Moines, Iowa plant comes from soybean waste oil. It’s not 100 percent soybean oil, but it’s used in 100 percent of the ag tires,” Tidwell added.
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Figure 1 All of Bridgestone’s agricultural tires contain some amount of soybean waste oil as an ingredient.
Another approach to establishing sustainable resources for making tire materials is happening in the company’s Mesa, Arizona research lab. The lab personnel have developed processes for getting latex from the guayule plant, a native desert shrub, for making natural rubber used in Bridgestone’s tires. “And that investment is substantial because we’re focused on the future, and as climate change occurs we want to make sure we have a diverse source of latex,” he said.
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Figure 2 Bridgestone’s Mesa, Ariz., research lab has developed a process for extracting natural latex from the desert guayule plant. Photo courtesy of greenchemicalsblog.com
Reducing Waste in Manufacturing Operations
“Our approach is, ‘How can we reduce waste?’ It starts with ‘How do we not make as much waste to begin with?’” Darr said. “In the last 10 years, we’ve dropped the waste generation in our plant operations by 50 percent. That has occurred with a focus on reducing the amount of production waste in each process and developing a zero waste mindset.
“And of the plant materials that ultimately do become waste, can we find a next-better use for those and not send them to a landfill?” (Read “For Bridgestone’s sustainability, zero landfill is where the rubber meets the road.”)
Reducing Waste in Tire Products in Use
“In terms of the tires in use, the old news part is that our tires last so long,” Tidwell said. “When I started driving, tires might last 12,000 miles. Now all the good tires we make are 50,000-miles-plus tires. So, literally, to go the same distance you use four tires instead of 16.” That means 12 fewer tires to discard.
The other aspect of sustainability of tires while in use is that they are more rolling-efficient, he added. One line of tires is designed specifically to decrease rolling resistance to increase fuel efficiency and reduce emissions.
Ridding End-of-life Tire Waste
Finally, in post-use, the manufacturer’s program entitled Tires4ward is intended to lead toward a waste-free tire industry,” Tidwell said. The program’s goal is that for every tire Bridgestone sells in the U.S., one tire taken out of use goes on to another valuable purpose. “So 100 percent of the tires that are returned to our 2,200 stores go on to a next-beneficial use. They’re recycled in some way,” Tidwell said.
Last year alone, Bridgestone retail stores saved more than 10 million spent tires from the landfill, the company states.
The program also recycles tires collected as part of organized public lands, rivers, streams, and lakes clean-up events across the country (see Figure 3).
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Figure 3 Bridgestone’s Tires4ward pledges to recycle a tire for every tire it sells, including those pulled out of rivers and other waterways as part of community cleanups.
An unintended consequence of tire companies charging customers for disposal of their spent tires has been the dumping of tires in rivers and other waterways.
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Figure 4 The tire manufacturer allows river and waterway cleanup crews to bring every tire they extract to one of its 2,200 stores for repurposing at no charge.
“Three years ago and every year since, we’ve invited anybody, anywhere, doing a river or creek cleanup in this country to let us know they’re doing it, and we’ll take care of the tires. They bring them to the store and we’ll get those tires on to a next-better use in appreciation for the people who work hard to get them out of the creeks and rivers where they don’t belong,” Tidwell said.
Tidwell added that the company’s commitment to sustainability lies at the intersection of American ingenuity and Japanese historical depth. “When you look at a company as old as Bridgestone, with its roots in the American company Firestone, you see a real interesting combination of the innovation attitude of America and the long-term perspective of the Japanese culture.
“One of the strengths that our company has in addressing sustainability issues is combining those to move to a zero waste culture. Zero waste is very important and achievable. In the long-term, it has to be achievable.”
Bridgestone Americas Inc., 3001 Firestone Pkwy, Wilson, NC 27893, 252-291-4275, www.bridgestoneamericas.com
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Take on the Zero-waste-to-landfill Challenge!
Bridgestone Americas . Wilson, N.C. Sept. 22
Don’t miss Tidwell’s presentation at our Sept. 22 Take on the Zero-waste-to-landfill Challenge, hosted by Bridgestone at its Wilson, N.C. plant, which includes a tour. It, too, holds potential to be epic.
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To learn more about zero landfill manufacturers, check out how Crown Equipment did it in “Crown Lift Trucks achieves zero landfill status;” Schick’s achievement, in “Zero landfill: The closest shave of all;” Sherwin-Williams’ Purdy plant’s zwl in “Zero landfill underscores zero-VOC achievement;” and Freightliner Custom Chassis Corp.’s successful zwl in “Chassis builder achieves zero waste to landfill using reusable packaging.”
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