Worn out tyres can bring a lot
of joy in the lives of people, especially children. Apollo Tyres has done just
that with their worn out tyres. The
company inaugurated two tyre playgrounds near Chennai, in Tamil Nadu. These playgrounds
have been created using worn out tyres for the children of Senakuppam and Vallakottai
villages, just outside Chennai.
Each of these playgrounds has
been created using nearly 200 radial tyres, under company’s umbrella environment
initiative, Habitat Apollo. Depending on the success of this pilot project of
creating play structures using worn out tyres, the company will look at
replicating it at multiple locations across the country, with the villages
around Apollo Tyres’ manufacturing facilities, as the first targets.
The two village schools in
Senakuppam and Vallakottai were identified for the tyre playgrounds, as they
lacked play structures. Structures like monkey-climb, swing and ropeway has
been created using the worn-out tyres.
Discarded tyres or end-of-life
tyres, in India, are increasingly being consumed by the environmentally
hazardous so-called pyrolysis units in the unorganised sector. The other common
usages of such tyres are:
--Partially better tyres are
refurbished (retreaded or patched using gaiters) and sold in tier II cities
---Also used for engineering
recovery, where in the crumb or reclaim rubber is extracted for reuse
---In case nothing works, tyres
are sent to brick kilns to be used as fuel
Satish Sharma, President, Asia
Pacific, Middle East & Africa, Apollo Tyres Ltd inaugurated the
playgrounds, located inside the community schools, along with the head of the local
panchayats and the school headmasters. “As per a research commissioned by us,
very soon India will have 100 million+ end-of-life tyres every year, without
proper mechanisms in place to recycle or dispose of these tyres. As a
responsible company, we have been working towards tackling this issue of
discarded tyres. From expanding our retreading footprint, to the launch of Go
The Distance pitch in Old Trafford, UK, and now these play structures, all
showcase ways we have been working towards the reuse or recycling of discarded
tyres.”