Abstract
In August 26th, 1999, the Brazilian Ministry of Environment through the National Environment Council - CONAMA edited Act Number 258 which determines responsibilities for collection and environmental friendly destination of worn out tires. According to this Act, tire manufacturers and importers must give final destination to tires in an yearly increasing ratio, beginning on January 1st, 2002. This legislation aims to achieve four years later hundred percent of the discarded tires annual volume and affect the accumulated amount of prior years. There is an estimated number of 800 million tires ever produced in Brazil, but uncontrolled destination and prior recycling activities must have reduced this amount significantly. In the year of 1997, the amount of discarded tires was about 32 million and it was estimated that more than 100 millions were in landfills or elsewhere abandoned, but could be recycled.
The CONAMA Act number 258 says that in 2002 the recycled to local produced and recycled to imported tires ratios shall be of 1:4. In 2003, these ratios shall be of 1:2. In 2004, the recycled to local produced and recycled to imported new tire ratios shall be of 1:1, but the recycled to imported retreaded tires ratio shall be of 4:5. In 2005, the recycled to local produced and recycled to imported new tires ratios shall be of 4:5 and the recycled to imported retreaded tires shall be of 3:4. After 2005, the ratios shall be re-evaluated. Nor tires produced in Brazil, but destined to exportation, neither tires equipping vehicles destined to exportation are considered in these calculations. It is expected that the achievement of the first year requirements of the Environmental Act Number 258 will be reached by the industry with no great difficulty as they are already involved in some tire recycling activities. However, to achieve the increasing requirements it will demand a more complex action with collection, recycling and market development policies. The roles of national tire industry, car manufacturers, remolded tires importers and tire consuming industries are analyzed in the context of achieving the legislations requirements. The recycling activities considered are pyrolisis, coincineration in cement kilns and rubber regeneration. Two scenarios with averages annual growth of 1% and 3% are assumed for every activities of interest and 1997 data are taken as baseline. It is considered that, once achieving the requirements for the year of 2005, the ratios shall be maintained. This decision would provide accumulated amount complete consumption until the year of 2026, for an 3% average annual growth, or 2033, for an 1% average annual growth. After the accumulated amount complete consumption, scrap tire offer to the recycling activities will be forced to reduce to the annual discarded amount. It represents a 11% reduction in both scenarios. As scrap tire is a profitably raw material for the three recycling activities considered in this work, and for many others currently practiced in smaller scale, the consequences of offer shrank are remarkably important.