Only along a path where every step is characterized and tested. Diversion from landfill is the starting point. A recovered material earns a place in infrastructure by proving strength, durability or another measurable property.
Waste tires are one of the largest and most stable streams of recovered material in the country. The question is not whether they can be kept out of landfills. Most already are. The question is whether any part of that stream can move from fuel and fill into materials that buildings and infrastructure depend on.
Where scrap tires go now
The U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association's 2023 end-of-life tire report, the latest edition, counts 304 million tires hauled in 2023. After 40 million were culled for reuse, net scrap was 264 million tires, or about 4.8 million tons. End-use markets took 79 percent of that, up from 71 percent in 2021. Tire-derived fuel was the largest single use at roughly a third, burned mainly in cement kilns, pulp and paper mills and electric utilities. Ground rubber took more than a quarter and civil engineering uses about 6 percent. About 18 percent, some 874,000 tons, was landfilled, and roughly 48 million tires remain in stockpiles. EPA proposed in March 2026 to let whole abandoned tires be burned as fuel in cement kilns to help clear those stockpiles.
That picture matters for anyone pitching a new use. A recovered material competes with established, cheap outlets. It has to offer something those outlets do not.
Recovered carbon black is getting a vocabulary
Pyrolysis breaks tires down into oil, gas, steel and a solid carbon product. Refined, that product is sold as recovered carbon black (rCB). ASTM formed Committee D36 on Recovered Carbon Black in 2017, and its first standard, D8178, defines the terminology. A later classification, D8632, covers rCB used in rubber products. Those are the first steps toward the kind of specification a buyer can write into a contract.
The carbon story is part of the appeal. Virgin carbon black is energy intensive. A Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study estimated about 3.5 kg of CO₂ per kg for the furnace process when tail gas is flared, falling to about 1.45 kg when the tail gas is used for power and steam. There is no single official figure, so any comparison should name its source and its assumptions.
What the concrete research says
The evidence for tire-derived materials in concrete is mixed, and it depends on the form. Studies summarized in a 2024 review in Cleaner Materials reported compressive strength losses of roughly 26 to 30 percent when 20 percent of aggregate was replaced with crumb rubber, mainly because rubber bonds poorly with the cement matrix. The same review reports gains in ductility, impact resistance and damping. Pyrolysis carbon is a different material. One 2022 laboratory study found that adding tire-derived carbon black at 4 percent of cement weight raised 28-day compressive strength by 26 percent, with benefits between 3 and 5 percent and slightly negative effects above 9 percent. That is a single study, not a settled result.
Asphalt is further along. The Federal Highway Administration has documented both wet and dry processes for adding ground tire rubber to paving, and USTMA reports rubber-modified asphalt has used 165,000 tons of end-of-life tires since 2021.
The test a recovered material has to pass
- Consistency. Feedstock varies. The product has to be characterized batch to batch against a published specification.
- Performance. Strength, durability and any claimed special property measured with standard methods, not asserted.
- Durability over service life. Buildings last decades; lab results at 28 days are a start.
- Documentation. An environmental product declaration and a chain of custody that a specifier can rely on.
Treat recovered carbon as an engineered input, not a disposal offset. The route from tire to building runs through a specification, and a material that cannot be specified will not be used where consequence is high.
Sources
- USTMA, 2023 U.S. End-of-Life Tire Management Report
- USTMA, 2023 End-of-Life Tire Management Report (PDF)
- U.S. EPA, Proposal to help clean up abandoned tires (Mar. 20, 2026)
- U.S. EPA, Scrap Tire fact sheet (Dec. 2020)
- ASTM, First standard for recovered carbon black approved (2019)
- ASTM D8178, Standard Terminology Relating to Recovered Carbon Black
- Rosner et al., Journal of Cleaner Production (2024), carbon black process emissions
- Azunna et al., Cleaner Materials 12 (2024), crumb rubber concrete review
- Abdulfattah et al., Case Studies in Construction Materials 16 (2022), pyrolytic carbon black in concrete
- FHWA-HIF-20-043, Use of Ground Tire Rubber in Asphalt Pavements
Cite this article: Authentic Intelligence Research, “Can Waste Tires Become an Infrastructure Material?” Authentic Intelligence, September 30, 2026, https://authenticint.com/articles/waste-tire-carbon-and-the-circular-infrastructure-economy.html.