Recycled Rubber Wheel Stops, Car Blocks, Speed Bumps, Humps and Cushions from US Scrap Tires.

2008-08-12T12:26:00.000-07:00

Recycled rubber products such as Parking Lot Wheel Stops also called car blocks, car stops, wheel stops or car bumpers are being made in the US to help meet the “Go Green” purchasing mandate demanded by municipalities, environmental conscious corporations and concerned citizens for recycled content products. Recycled rubber product innovation has expanded to Speed Bumps, Speed Mini Humps, Speed Humps, Speed Cushions, Sign Bases, Rubber Curbs, Rubber Pavers, Wheel chocks and more.

A handful of Green minded U.S. manufacturers are doing their part to clean up the 300 million scrap tires generated in the U.S. annually. Companies like, RubberForm Recycled Products, Scientific Developments, Inc. and Enviroform Recycled Products are competing against U.S. distributors of foreign made recycled products from Canada, Mexico and China.

Barco Products of Illinois and Markstaar of Kansas are two of the many U.S. importers of the GNR Technologies recycled rubber product line from Quebec, Canada. None of their product pages indicate “made from Foreign Recycled tires”. Many other industrial supply and safety supply catalog companies send catalogs to facilities managers all over the US selling foreign recycled products from China and Mexico. Most catalogs don’t indicate where the recycled product was made.

Bill Robbins, President of Rubberform Recycled Products, LLC based in Lockport, NY asks, “Why would a “Go Green” minded company or property owner buy a foreign recycled product that cleans up a foreign landfill before taking care of our U.S. scrap tire problem first?”

The first part of the answer is awareness that there are US Green Manufacturers and part of the answer is price. Chinese and Mexican products are lower in price due to cheap labor. The Canadian products are lower due to a 50% subsidy by the province of Quebec or British Columbia. According to the June issue of Scrap Tire News, Subsidy plans are being considered now by the province of Ontario; these subsidy plans have put a number of crumb rubber producers out of business in the western United States and our impeding growth of those remaining. If Ontario comes on line with a subsidy program, Scrap Tire News estimates a potential 300,000,000 lbs of Crumb rubber and crumb rubber products will be dumped at very low prices. The result would be stockpiled landfills full of US tires with no recycled rubber manufacturers being able to afford to make them into recycled products and compete fairly.

Robbins says, “That Americans and American Businesses need to be made aware that environmental sustainability, “Going Green” and recycling should start close to home. We can clean up America by being Red, White, Blue and Green as we do it.”

A subsidy to promote recycled rubber products within your own country makes sense. But to unfairly use it to export scrap tire products to another country below what a US Company can produce it for has put US based recyclers out of business and undercut the market for other American businesses unfairly. That is why there is a call for the U.S. Department of Commerce to implement a tariff on all crumb rubber products subsidized by the Canadian Government or its provinces. U.S. Recycled Rubber Manufacturers can barely produce a Parking Lot Wheel Stop for the price that Barco Products, Markstaar, or Traffic Logix sells a heavily subsidized Canadian product for. This same Canadian Supplier has now opened a second facility in Mexico.

Many Municipalities and Home Owners Associations are turning to recycled rubber traffic calming devices such as Speed Humps and Speed Cushions to slow traffic in residential neighborhoods to the 20 to 30 MPH range. Communities find them far less expensive than a policeman with a radar gun and the traffic calming devices are on duty 24/7. These Traffic calming devices are bolted to the road surface and can be easily removed for snow plows in the winter or relocated to fit the needs of the Municipality.

In order to promote a “Go Green America” we need to require that it be made in America. What is needed is for municipalities, traffic engineers and architects to “Spec-in” their traffic calming projects with a requirement for American made and American sourced recycled tire rubber.

A typical Speed Cushions may weigh over 500 pounds and divert 30 to 35 tires from a landfill to a new and useful purpose. Why are we cleaning up Canadian, Mexican and Chinese scrap tires and not our own first?

“Go Green” purchasing policies are right for Corporate America, municipalities, Colleges and Universities, however we all still need to be educated on Going Green with a Red, White and Blue commitment to cleaning up our own backyards first, before we import foreign sourced recycled products whether they be recycled rubber, recycled paper or recycled plastic. When you buy foreign recycled products you doom future generations to tire stockpiles and larger American landfills.

American Made Green

Recycled Rubber Wheel Stops, Car Blocks, Speed Bumps, Humps and Cushions from US Scrap Tires.