Promising bacteria
RECYCLERS turn old cans and bottles into new ones and old newspapers into today's daily. Now it is the turn of waste tyres in the country? Robert Romine, working at Rouse Rubber Industries, Mississippi, us, has introduced an eco-friendly technique for processing old tyres by using microorganisms (Environmental Health Perspectives, Vol 104, No 11).
Tyres make ideal breeding places for disease carriers like rats and mosquitoes and if burnt, release hazardous materials including soot, benzene, sulphur, heavy metals and petroleum residues. As such number of nations have already implemented landfill bans on scrap tyres.
Romine, initially studied five different bacteria for their effect on ground tyre rubber (gtr).He conducted a seven-day experiment, during which the bacteria were fed on gtr and the biodesulphurisation