My product that I have chosen to investigate the lifecycle of is the tire. The reason why I chose it is because people use it a lot more then they think and I would like to now how the tires are created and what environmental impacts that they cause when they are disposed of.
Timeline:
The first process of making a tire is Extracting the material. The most commonly used rubber is natural rubber, which comes from special trees that are created to produce the raw material. This raw material is called a latex, the latex is harvested from rubber trees by making an incision in the bark of the tree and collecting it in a tree tap, this process is called "tapping". The latex is then shipped to a manufacturing plant for processing.
The second process of making a tire is Processing the raw materials that were previously gathered. The latex is transferred into coagulated tanks to be turned into dry rubber, or it will be transferred to an air tight container and prepared for ammoniation which helps keep the latex in a colloid state. The coagulated latex can the be processed into a higher grade of rubber. The processed rubber is then cleaned to remove contamination and prepare it for the last stage of drying. The natural rubber is sometimes vulcanized which improves its resistance and elasticity using sulfur and peroxide or bisphenol.
The third part of the process of making a tire is Manufacturing. Around 25 million tons of rubber is produced every year and 42% of that is natural rubber. The other 58% is a blend of petrochemical sources called synthetic rubber.
The fourth part of the lifecycle of a tire is its use. The tire is used on many vehicles of transportation throughout the world. Some examples of the vehicles that use them are cars, trucks, vans, trackers, motorcycles, bikes, and lots of other means of transportation.
The final step of the lifecycle of a tire is Disposing the used tire. The only way to properly dispose of a tire, is to recycle it and use the rubber that it is made of to create something else. If you do through away the tire, the chemicals from vulcanization could leak into the ground and pollute the ground water. If you burn the tires you would be burning the chemicals which will cause air pollution.
Here are some ways that you can recycle tires. You could use the rubber to make tar for roads, make a swing for a playground, you could use the tire as a flower pot or create a neat sculpture out of the rubber scrapes.
Sources
1) http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Tire.html
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rubber#Processing
3) http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=creative+ways+of+recycling+tires&FORM=HDRSC2
1) http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Tire.html
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rubber#Processing
3) http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=creative+ways+of+recycling+tires&FORM=HDRSC2
Conclusion:
Product lifestyle of a product means all of the stages that the product goes through from getting the raw materials to processing it to disposing of the used product.
|
The typical modern day tire's potential lifecycle is about 80 thousand miles of tread wear before the tire needs to be disposed.
|
The importance of companies to research a products lifecycle is to see if it is worth spending money on the product based on the amount of profit that they will get during the product's lifecycle.
|
It is important to recycle because if you don't the environment could be effected in a bad way and every animal in that environment could go endangered due to you not recycling.
|
I would try to change the chemicals that are put into the tire to make the tires more environmentally safe but also more flexable and tough at the same time.
|
Product designers make their products bio degrade-able which means that the product will slowly break down over time in nature and not effect the environment that it is in.
|
Over time, I think that the product would become obsolete as technology of transportation goes further into the future where cars are able to hover over the ground without using tires to help move the car.
|
Society is starting to understand the importance of recycling and how it effects nature. So now we are starting to make eco-friendly products and recycling the products that are not bio degrade-able to help strengthen the surrounding environment that we live in.
|
The trade off of the tire is that it is extremely flexable and resilient to just about anything but at the cost of harmful chemicals that could severly damage the environment.
|
To help I could recycle more materials that can be recycled, I could also help conserve energy in my house so we don't use as much. I could also encourage others to recycle and show them all the good that recycling does for us and the environment.
|
I do believe that tradeoffs where made during the design process while
they were designing the tires to be cheap for them and make a big profit
while the downfall is that the increase in harmful chemicals could harm
the environment.
they were designing the tires to be cheap for them and make a big profit
while the downfall is that the increase in harmful chemicals could harm
the environment.