Waste tyre management in Thailand : a material flow analysis approach | |
| Author | Tasawan Suparat |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.EV-13-31 |
| Subject(s) | Tires Salvage (Waste, etc.) Refuse and refuse disposal |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Environmental Engineering and Management |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Series Statement | Thesis ; no. EV-13-31 |
| Abstract | Fast development of automotive industry and rising vehicle use is giving rise to large amount of tyre production and waste tyre generation in Thailand. Waste tyre management is becoming a challenge in Thailand because of a large amount of tyre production and wide use of vehicles, but small amounts of recycling. Being a new stream of waste and with less priority from government, the waste tyre management in Thailand is at infancy stage, and is in need of appropriate and aggressive policies, plans and strategies. Material Flow Analysis (MFA) has been used as a tool to identify and quantify the flows of tyre and waste tyre in Thailand. The available tool for MFA is the STAN software. The MFA result shows that at present, the maximum amount of waste tyres ends up in open dumping, with relatively less recycling and recovery. The amount of waste tyre dumps in open environment has hence been taken as an indicator to assess the current and future scenarios of waste tyre management in Thailand. For formulating effective strategies, it is important for policy makers to understand the priority areas of concern, whether it is the tyre manufacturing process that has to be worked on to tackle waste tyre management, or is it the recycling and disposal options that require immediate and priority attention. Extracting this kind of information was made possible through assessing the flows and stocks of tyre in the material flow analysis. Analyzing the actors/organizations that have stakes in waste tyre management is also very important to design management strategies. Stakeholder Analysis was performed to understand the waste tyre management activities in Thailand. The interviews and field visit were arranged to get information from tyre manufacturing, tyre recycling manufacturing, tyre shops and related government sectors. The government and public-private sector institutions that fall under the category of stakeholders with high importance and high influence such as PCD, DIW, and Rubber Based Industry Club are expected to prioritize the waste tyre management system, and use their influence on other relevant stakeholders to improvise the waste tyre management scenario in Thailand. The result illustrates that the demand of vehicle use (vehicle registered) and tyre replacement rate (Rc) are most important factors for estimating the waste tyre generation each year. The study shows that nearly 50% of waste tyre generated goes into open environment without proper collection and treatment, while very less is recycled as reclaimed rubber, and energy contained in the tyre is recovered by co-incineration and pyrolysis processes. Cement kilns are identified as one of the potential industries to utilize waste tyre as fuel substitution in their energy intensive cement production processes. Three different scenarios “Business as Usual”, “increased tyre recycling rate”, and “increase in co-incineration rate at cement kilns” were proposed for next ten years (2022). Waste tyre recycling and energy recovery from waste tyres offers benefits, and both the waste utilization processes have their own set of policy, technology, financial and other resources requirement, nevertheless both scenario 2 “recycling” and scenario 3” waste to energy recovery” are definitely the two potential strategies for waste tyre management in Thailand. |
| Year | 2013 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Energy and Climate Change (Former title: Department of Energy, Environment, and Climate Change (DEECC)) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Environmental Engineering (EV) |
| Chairperson(s) | Visvanathan, C.; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Nguyen, Thi Kim Oanh;Salam, Abdul P.; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Royal Thai Government;Asian Institute of Technology Fellowship; |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2013 |