Rubber recycling

Gathering waste materials for recycling is least of all a new phenomenon as it done by tens of thousands of people in urban areas all over the world. Waste provides the poor people a last resort to get employment through continuous struggle to survive with minimal income, bad working conditions and socially inferior status. Enhancing the reuse of solid waste can restore some natural cycle and can contribute to solutions of urban issues like food production, waste disposal, energy shortages and improvement of environmental quality. Recycling decreases the quantity of waste to be collected and disposed, provide job opportunities to the poor people,conserve finite resources and save environment. The items commonly recycled are paper, glass, plastics, rubber etc. Recycling of rubber receives less priority and attention than other waste materials like paper and metals due to its financial value, margin of profit, final product, marketability, quality and public acceptance. This paper examines local technologies and legislative measures practised in industrialized and less industrialized countries and suggests actions for an optimal reuse of waste rubber.