One of the more innovative ways to dispose of old tires that I have heard of, was to freeze them in liquid nitrogen. After dipping they are shattered, this releases the steel from the "rubber". The steel can be recycled, and the "rubber" was then used in road paving.

On Oct 14, 2011, at 6:12 AM, Dennis Haynes wrote:
> ...
> As for hand mounting and balancing the main advantage of the balancing
> machines is speed and consistency. How long did you spend installing those
> tires? Do you want to pay $100/hour for that? Also the bubble balance does
> not compensate for side to side variations.
>
> It's hard to believe that in a state with so many environmental initiatives
> that they allow simply burning tires to get the rubber. What a mess.
>
> ...
> Dennis
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
> Don Hanson
> Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 12:23 AM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: More about tires...somewhat early ..sort of Friday
> ...
>  So why do tire shops try to charge us to 'dispose' of used tires when they
> obviously have value and are re-constituted into more tires to sell us
> again?
...