Burning Rubber

6.5 million -- number of tires recalled this year by Bridgestone/Firestone

270 million -- number of scrap tires generated in the U.S. in 1998

500 million -- number of scrap tires currently in U.S. stockpiles

35 -- number of U.S. states that ban whole tires from landfills

59 -- number of tire fires in the U.S. between 1996 and 1998

14 million -- number of tires consumed in a 1990 tire fire in Hagersville, Ontario, the largest tire fire in history, which burned for 17 days and drove some 4,000 people from their homes

8 million -- estimated number of pounds of pollutants released into the air during a 1999 tire fire near Westley, Calif., which burned for 30 days

7 -- number of gallons of crude oil needed to produce one car tire

3.6 billion -- number of gallons of crude oil needed to produce tires for all of the cars in the U.S.

75 -- percentage of recycled rubber in a retreaded tire

27.7 million -- estimated number of retreaded tires sold in the U.S. and Canada in 1999

100,000 -- number of barrels of oil that could be saved each day if Americans properly inflated their automobile tires

Sources:
1 -- Associated Press, H. Josef Hebert, 08.09.00.
2-3 -- Scrap Tire Management Council, Scrap Tire Facts & Figures.
4 -- U.S. EPA, Commodities: Rubber, 09.08.00.
5 -- Scrap Tire Management Council, Scrap Tire Use/Disposal Study, 1998/1999 Update, Executive Summary, 09.15.99.
6 -- Hamilton Spectator, Dan Nolan, 02.12.00.
7 -- Modesto Bee, Steve Elliot, 09.26.99; and Merced Sun-Star, Bill Hatch, 03.01.00.
8 -- Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc., "Rubber Recycling Rolls Along," 05.00.
9 -- Calculated considering there were 129,749,000 passenger cars registered in the U.S. in 1997, as cited in the Federal Highway Administration's National Transportation Statistics '99 Report, 4 tires per car, and 7 gallons of crude oil per tire, as cited above.
10 -- Waste Age, Chaz Miller, 08.00.
11 --Tire Retread Information Bureau, 2000 Fact Sheet.
12 -- U.S. EPA, Your Car or Truck -- and the Environment, 09.93.