Sometimes global economic forces are stronger than good intentions. 

By Zach St. George

Reprinted with permission from : http://www.takepart.com/feature/2016/02/12/tire-recycling-california-smog?cmpid=tp-pr

February 13, 2016  (Stockton, CA) — Inside a dark, high-ceilinged machine shop, Mark Hope leans over a motionless conveyor belt, picking through the black scraps. He finds what he’s looking for and holds it up—a web of silver wires sandwiched between two layers of black rubber. “There’s a lot of metal in tires,” he says. “Ten, fifteen percent.” The wire is tough on the equipment, he says. He points up to the shredder, a grimy box with one conveyor to drop tires into the hopper on the top and another conveyor to carry the shredded tires away. The shears are inside the box. “We have to change these out all the time,” he says. They’re constantly going dull from the wire.