Tire-derived fuel

Tire-derived fuel (TDF) is composed of shredded scrap tires. Tires may be mixed with coal or other fuels, such as wood or chemical wastes, to be burned in concrete kilns, power plants, or paper mills. An EPA test program concluded that, with the exception of zinc emissions, potential emissions from TDF are not expected to be very much different from other conventional fossil fuels, as long as combustion occurs in a well-designed, well-operated and well-maintained combustion device.^[1]

In the United States in 2017, about 43% of scrap tires (1,736,340 tons or 106 million tires) were burnt as tire-derived fuel. Cement manufacturing was the largest user of TDF, at 46%, pulp and paper manufacturing used 29% and electric utilities used 25%. Another 25% of scrap tires were used to make ground rubber, 17% were disposed of in landfills and 16% had other uses.^[2]