Merchant suggests tires as backfill for Inco mines

Inco Ltd., a pacesetter in its efforts to clean up the environment, may help to rid Ontario of the hazard caused by discarded tires. Laboratory tests are being conducted to decide if tires, ground into crumbs and mixed with concrete, can be used as mine backfill. Many of the 20 million tires discarded in Canada each year are piled high in landfill sites or privately owned dumps. A fire in February fuelled by 14 million old tires near the southern Ontario town of Hagersville, near Lake Erie, and a similar fire near Montreal, Que., have alerted Canadians that a solution is needed.

Among the businessmen who have offered their products or services is John Kardas, owner of Stevenville Auto Wreckers in Stevenville, Ont. He suggested using the tires as backfill to Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment and two Inco employees based in Copper Cliff, Ont.

Kardas told The Northern Miner that he first approached Ontario’s Municipal/Industrial Strategy for Abatement (MISA), which favored the idea. MISA, introduced in 1986, strives to eliminate toxic contaminants from all discharges into the province’s waterways. (The meltdown of rubber at Hagersville could have released up to 5.5 million gallons of oil into the soil and waterways though government officials considered the estimate an exaggeration.)

Kardas then contacted Inco engineers Brian Bell and Tom Price at Copper Cliff, near Sudbury. The project is still “a concept,” says Bell, supervisor of environmental control. “Whether it is feasible remains to be determined.”

Tom Price cautions The Northern Miner against premature optimism. “Laboratory tests are being conducted,” says Price. “We will take a look at the results” in July.

Inco has nine underground mines and two smelters in Sudbury and a refinery in Port Colborne near Lake Erie. Some of the trucks that transport material to Port Colborne from Sudbury are empty on their return journey. These empty trucks could pick up some of the shredded tires in southern Ontario from Port Colborne and carry them to Sudbury, suggests Kardas.

The tires would be ground into crumbs and then mixed with concrete for backfill. To prevent possible soil contamination, the shredded tires would be temporarily stored in the open pit mines excavated from bedrock, Kardas adds. Should there be a fire, the tires would be sprayed with fluid and the blaze smothered by foam.

If the Ministry of the Environment approves of his idea, Kardas says he will submit his proposal to Inco executives. Should they reject it, he plans to approach Falconbridge Ltd. whose mines are about 15 miles away from Inco.

Kardas is confident that his idea can be successfully executed. “The Peace Bridge in Buffalo is built of a similar rubber-concrete mixture,” he says, adding that he has access to 10 million of the 30-40 million tires in Ontario. “I want to be the country’s tire king.”