Trending: Viral video shows hidden cost of burning tyres

The video shows how a tyre burning created a massive black cloud, polluting the environment and posing health risks.

A video has been widely shared on Instagram recently, recorded by a user named Subhajit Mukherjee and shared by the Instagram handle @mission_green_mumbai (Subhajit Mukherjee Foundation), showing a burning car tyre that caused a massive black cloud, polluting the environment and posing health risks.

The video shows a tyre burning, releasing harmful emissions.

The video, which has gone viral on the internet, shows how burning one tyre can cause significant environmental toxicity. Across several parts of the world, the uncontrolled burning of tyres remains a largely unseen yet deeply damaging practice. This method is primarily used for recovering steel from discarded tyres. The long-term consequences of this for human health, the environment, and surrounding communities are severe and far-reaching.

More on the viral video on burning tyres.

The video was captioned, “Uncontrolled burning of tyres is highly toxic, releasing harmful emissions, including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), heavy metals, and cancer-causing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). The resulting thick, black smoke poses significant health and environmental risks. Tyres contain a surprising amount of steel in their belts and beads (around 11.5% iron by weight in a typical passenger car tyre). In areas lacking proper recycling infrastructure, the crude recovery of this metal by burning the rubber off provides an important, albeit rudimentary and unsafe, source of income.” It added, “Statistics on ELT disposal methods generally categorise them into landfilling, material recovery, and energy recovery, but specific data on the number of tyres subjected to uncontrolled open burning for metal retrieval worldwide is not tracked in formal reports.”

Watch the viral video here:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DS_yHRYjDcQ/?igsh=MWt3ZHY5bDJhaHduYg%3D%3D

Netizens react to the viral video.

Many users reacted with a shocked face emoji. One user wrote, “Ohh, we never knew this😱😱” Another expressed, “I request everyone to share this…PLEASE 🙏 Share it with your friends…keep it in your stories…!!” A third person questioned, “Why can’t we recycle ♻️” One more commented, “Also should stop burning dried leaves of tree which release tremendous dark smoke.”

Uncontrolled tyre burning is not merely a waste management problem; it is a public health emergency and an environmental injustice.