Hub leader Prof Veena Sahajwalla AO has contributed to reporting on circular economy solutions for illegal tyre dumping by ABC News.
This comes after an anti-dumping activist called on the Queensland state government to assist with cleaning up a large illegal tyre dump near Townsville, which could contain 1,000 discarded tyres.
This has reignited calls for a mandatory stewardship program for industry to help curb illegal dumping.
DCCEEW says it is reviewing the Recycling and Waste Reduction Act, including rules that support the regulation of waste tyre exports and tyre stewardship.
From the article, Untouched illegal tyre dump sparks continued calls for legislation and innovation around recycling:
Recycling tyres 'complex', but could be a 'new resource'
Professor Veena Sahajwalla is the director of the Sustainable Communities and Waste Hub at the University of New South Wales.
She said that typically people will think of recycling as a "like for like" conversion in which an end-of-use product becomes that product once again.
Materials scientist Professor Veena Sahajwalla says tyres contain elements that can be used in green steel manufacture. (ABC News: Patrick Thomas)
She believes that when broken down, tyres could have more diverse applications than just becoming rubber products.
"Tyres do contain fundamentally important elements like carbon and of course hydrogen. All of these are important elements that could well be applied in processing and making of green steel," Dr Sahajwalla said.
"Waste is really not a waste, it's a resource, and if it's a resource, you have to know how to harness that resource."
Rubber can replace coal and coke to provide carbon.
In the steelmaking process the rubber crumbs are injected directly into an electric arc furnace that liberates the carbon and hydrogen and allows them to perform metallurgical reactions.
Rubber crumbs can replace coal and coke as a carbon source when making steel. (Supplied: SMaRT@UNSW)
Dr Sahajwalla said markets needed to be "intentionally created" by working with industrial players.
"What we are talking about here really is about re-manufacturing," she said.
"It's not good enough to say, well, you know what, if we just collect something, if we just shred something, the market will just happen. We can't wait for the market to just happen."
Read the full ABC News article
Read our tyre circularity research
Image credit - ABC News: Baz Ruddick
