An innovative Australian is doing his bit to tackle the mountains of used tyres going into landfill by recycling them for use on farms.
Owen Henry was working for a company that sold American-made recycled tyre mats to stop cattle slipping in feedlots when he questioned why the product was imported.
"I looked down and I saw old woven tyre mats and I thought why are we bringing someone else's problems into Australia?" Mr Henry said.
"I started speaking to a couple of producers and they said the mats are brilliant, they just stop the cattle slipping, and fatalities, and I thought, 'well, I'll have a crack at it'."
At first it was a risky job, tackled by hand with an angle grinder.
Tyre Stewardship Australia helped Mr Henry buy a much safer, more efficient machine to slice away the tyre walls.
His woven tyre tread mats were fastened with steel studs and anchored to the ground in high traffic areas for livestock.
"Out the front of a crush they're brilliant. Loading ramps, anywhere cattle are encountering slippery surfaces," Mr Henry said.
Eight major tyre importers voluntarily pay a levy to Tyre Stewardship Australia, a not-for-profit organisation, focused on recycling tyres.
CEO Lina Goodman said Australians generated the equivalent of 56 million used car tyres a year and wasted 27 million of them.
"Unfortunately only half of them are either upcycled, reprocessed, or recycled into new products," Ms Goodman said.
"The rest are either illegally dumped, stockpiled, or sent overseas for poor recovery process."
Australia's environment ministers have agreed to ban the export of all whole waste tyres by December 2021.
Ms Goodman said the pressure was on to find alternative uses for crumb rubber in horse racing tracks, car parks, sports grounds, playgrounds, and quieter, longer lasting roads.
Each square metre of Owen Henry's Taurus mats used 19 tyre treads.
He has trialled them under feed bins in cattle yards and said his Australian-made Taurus mats were more affordable than the American version.
"We're $20-a-metre cheaper and you don't have to pay for freight and deal with freight issues. So it's a lot better for people in Australia," Mr Owen said.
He has also picked up business supplying the side walls of tyres to silage contractors for weighing down tarps over cattle feed.
"They need thousands of them. I can't keep up, which is great," Mr Henry said.
