By Denna Bowman

First Timberland started using old tyres to make eco-friendly soles for their trendy footwear - now they are stretching their green credentials even further by using recycled latex.

Green Rubber Inc, which already manufactures soles from recycled tyres for the US footwear giant, has signed a new agreement to make athletic shoes, boat shoes and boot soles from used latex.

Green Rubber announced in a statement that: “Timberland shoes featuring ‘green rubber’ made from waste latex went into production last December and will be on sale in shops by spring 2010.”

The waste latex from various glove factories in Malaysia will be turned into green rubber at the company’s plant in Sungei Buloh.

Datuk Vinod Sekhar, chief executive of Green Rubber, added: “With our original deal with Timberland, we demonstrated to the market that we could make high-quality recycled compounds from waste tyre.

“This new agreement clearly shows that our technology works equally well with waste latex.”

Unlike other forms of reprocessed rubber, green rubber can be used in high volumes for top-end applications as it retains up to 90% of the properties of the waste compound from which it was made.

Timberland uses 47% tyre-derived green rubber with 53% virgin rubber in its black-soled footwear collection. The footwear giant will use similar percentages for latex-derived green rubber.

The process of making green rubber is environment-friendly and only requires manufacturing equipment commonly found in the rubber industry. The green rubber compounds are significantly cheaper than virgin compound.

Apart from shoes, green rubber is already being used in truck tyres, basketballs, dodgeballs, golf grips and has even tested well in the United States for roofing material.

With all this snow around, it’s worth reminding anyone planning to drive abroad on a skiing holiday that you can cut the risk of a motoring accident by making sure your tyres are safe to tackle sub-zero weather conditions.

According to TyreSafe, the leading tyres safety organisation, over 175,000 British skiers travelled to their European holiday destination by car during the 2007-08 season.

However, they all risked an abrupt end to their trip if driving heavily laden cars with incorrect tyre pressures or low tread depth on icy, snow-covered roads.

TyreSafe warns that driving in snowy mountain regions requires a good level of tread depth to maintain traction with the road and stay in control of the vehicle.

It also reminds motorists that in certain European countries it is a legal requirement to fit cold weather tyres and so you should be careful to check the legislation of your destination country and any you will drive through on the way there before leaving, in order to avoid costly penalties or invalidating your insurance.

And finally, even something as simple as checking the tyre pressure for your vehicle when fully laden with passengers, luggage and ski equipment is also vital, as it may be necessary to increase the pressures to support the increased load.

Denna Bowman, Head Office

By Oliver Hall

Most people having a home built for them might expect to have to find their own kitchen units or chose their bathroom suite - but for one self-build couple it meant a month of foraging through breakers yards looking for old tyres!

For it took 650 hand-picked tyres and thousands of empty drink cans to build the walls of Scott Elder and Karla Lund’s stunning home, the latest prototype of an Earthship, a form of self-sustained home, tucked into a bluff above the Yellowstone River, eastern Montana.

Designed by an architect Michael Reynolds, also known as the “Garbage Warrior”, the two-bedroom house was built in just eight weeks.

The home’s south face, an angled wall of glass, rises over a greenhouse bathed in sunlight reflected off the snow-covered hills east of Miles City, while its other three sides are sunk into the hillside.

Last summer, a work crew and volunteers rammed dirt into tyres to create 650 steel-belted “bricks,” which were stacked in rows, nine tyres high.

Empty drink cans and beer bottles cemented side by side and covered with adobe mud became the interior walls of the eco-friendly home.

In the 1970s, Reynolds started designing bricks out of beer cans. Since then, he has built about a thousand Earthships, scattered around the world. Another thousand have been built by homeowners themselves.

Reynolds said: “We’re using what the world calls garbage. An auto tyre is built very well. It’s a shame to throw it away just when it loses its tread.”

The home operates off the power grid, relying on passive and active solar design and geothermal mass. Solar panels at the top of the angled glass wall charge batteries on the roof.

By Denna Bowman

Pirelli tyres have joined the controversial Young Driver Training initiative, which aims to teach under-17-year-olds how to drive, as an official sponsor.

The tyres manufacturer has just joined fellow sponsores SEAT and Admiral Insurance, however the course has run into criticism by the police and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

Dominic Sandivasci, managing director of Pirelli Tyre Ltd, said: “We’re delighted to be able to demonstrate our commitment to improving road safety through our involvement in the Young Driver initiative.

“The Pirelli name is synonymous with the high performance and safety characteristics of its products, and as part of our extensive Corporate Social Responsibility programme we are keen to support organisations that share our goal of making the road a safer place.”

The training takes place off-road, at designated centres.  However, Insp Alan Jones, of the Police Federation, dismissed the scheme. 

He said: ”Driving on one of these courses at 11 years old, it’s another six years until you can get a driving licence. How does it replicate the real world, the spontaneous incidents?

“Are kids mature enough at 11, 12, 13 years old to understand what’s happening on the roads, to be able to manage all the demands and pressures?  I’m not persuaded it’s a good idea.”

Kevin Clinton, of RoSPA, said: “While early education is a very good thing, the same does not apply to driving a car.

“It will probably mean youngsters will take fewer lessons when they come to learn to drive and if they take fewer lessons they will get less experience. That means when they pass their test they may be at greater risk of crashing because they won’t have had as much experience when they are supervised.”

With parts of the UK under deep blankets of snow again and forecasters warning that some areas could see up to another 6 inches more in the coming days, it is more important than ever to make sure your tyres can get to grips with hazardous road conditions.

If your tyres don’t have adequate tread depth in the snow, you may lose traction and find you’re unable to steer, brake or accelerate properly. At best this could mean you’re forced to abandon your car by the roadside and at worst, it could result in a serious or fatal accident.

Stuart Jackson, chairman for Tyresafe, the UK’s leading tyre safety organisation, said: “In many parts of Europe, drivers do not experience similar levels of disruption in the snow as they are more used to checking their tyres.

“By making these checks today, drivers will be much better equipped to tackle whatever weather we experience over the next few days.”

Current UK law states that tyres should have at least 1.6mm of tread across the central three quarters of the tyre around its entire circumference.

Tyresafe also suggests that in addition to checking their tread depth, drivers can significantly improve their safety in the winter by fitting cold weather tyres.

These are designed to operate more effectively and provide added safety in temperatures below seven degrees Celsius. They contain more natural rubber than standard “summer” tyres, meaning they have extra grip in cold, wet, icy conditions, and enable significantly shorter stopping distances.

Jackson added: “Cold weather tyres give drivers a major safety enhancement over the whole winter period, not just when the snow falls.

“As they are designed to work best at temperatures below seven degrees, they are very favourable from October through to March so should be seriously considered by all safety conscious motorists.”

Alex Kapadia, Operations Team

It appears some motorists are considering buying a second vehicle better equipped to deal with the kind of Arctic winters the UK has experienced in the last few months.

But the Car Clinic Panel in the Sunday Times’ Ingear supplement has a cheaper option - fit all-season tyres to your present car!

This was the exchange between the column and Mr SR, from Shotley Bridge, Co Durham, which was published today: “My wife and I live in a relatively remote part of the northeast that was gripped so firmly by the icy hand of winter that I had to have my Vauxhall Astra towed from our home to a main road, where it stayed until the weather eased. We are getting too old to dig out cars so are thinking of buying a modest second ca that won’t be as easily waylaid by Jack Frost - perhaps a Suzuki. What do you advise?”

Jason Dawe, the used-car expert on the Car Clinic Panel, offered this advise: “You may well find that adding all-season tyres to your Astra is enough to keep it moving in the snow. These are a variant of winter tyres, and have softer rubber and deeper treads to offer more grip in bad weather, yet are designed to be left on the car all year.”

Jason goes on to put in a good word for the Mitsubishi Shogun Pinin if the couple are set on buying a second car or a Suzuki Jimny 1.3 VVT JLX.

Denna Bowman, Head Office

By Denna Bowman

Goodyear tyres have issued a warning that its global pension plans are “significantly under-funded” and attempts to fill the hole could put the 110-year-old business at risk.

The heavily-indebted US tyres manufacturer confirmed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it planned to contribute between £178 million and £210 million to its global pension plans in 2010.

However, this is dramatically less than the £278 million it allocated to its US and non-US pension schemes last year. Goodyear also said that pension expenses could “materially increase” in the future if funding levels declined further.

The unfunded amount of the projected benefit obligation for the firm’s US plan was around £1.3 billion as of the end of 2009 and £484 million for its non-US scheme.

Goodyear said: “The current underfunded status of our pension plans will, and a further material increase in the underfunded status of the plans would, significantly increase our required contributions and pension expenses, which could impair our ability to achieve or sustain future profitability.”

Goodyear reported an annual net loss of £242 million for 2009, blaming weak commercial truck demand, high raw material costs and pension expenses.

By Oliver Hall

Bridgestone tyres posted $10.8 million in net income for 2009 on net sales of $28.1 billion.

Japan’s largest tyres manufacturer also reported a surge in quarterly profit after government incentives boosted car demand. However, Bridgestone forecast slower-than-expected growth this year as it faces high materials costs.

In a statement the world’s largest tyremaker announced: “In fiscal 2009, the company’s operating environment remained challenging.

“The economy in Japan continued to face a severe business climate, with weakened consumer spending and declines in private sector capital investment, which counteracted signs of recovery among some exports.

“Although the economic recession in the United States and Europe caused by the vicious downward spiral of the global economy continued, some sectors showed signs of stabilisation. Economic stimulus measures implemented by some governments can be recognised as one of the drivers of this stabilisation.

“In Asia, China’s business climate recovered, and although conditions remained challenging, the business climate in other regions began to show slight signs of recovery.”

Global tyre sales, which accounted for 83% of Bridgestone’s net sales, were down 18.1% to 2.1 trillion yen.

The major decline in passenger, light truck and truck tyre unit sales in North America was the result of a significant fall in demand, according to the company.

It added: “However, there was a significant increase from fiscal 2008 in unit sales of such strategic products as runflat tyres and UHP tyres in the replacement sector.”

In the Americas, net sales totaled 1.1 trillion yen, down 20% from 2008. Operating income, however, was up 59.2%.

Bridgestone credited the increase to “curbed expenses and a favorable performance by tyre retail operations.”

By Alex Kapadia

Reigning Formula One world champion Jenson Button posted the fastest overall time of the two week testing period at Jerez after putting his tyres through their paces.

The McLaren driver and his team worked through a tyres compound evaluation programme, balancing aero and mechanical set-ups to the different types of tyre.

And with the sun beaming down on the track, Button’s impressive 1:18.871 proved to be unbeatable on the final - and very productive - day of testing at Jerez.

In the morning, the British driver completed a number of shorter runs on three separate tyre compounds, evaluating set-ups before switching to longer runs in the afternoon, with a view to evaluating the tyres’ durability.

Pleased with the final days testing, Button said: “It was good, it’s great for every team to get some dry running in. It’s been quite frustrating with so much rain and inconsistency with the weather. It started a little bit damp which was quite useful because we got to understand the changeover from the wet to dry tyres.”

Following his third test with the Woking team, Button said that he feels very comfortable and confident in the car.

The latest Formula One news is that Ferrari has signed a new wheel nut which could help it lower the time it takes to change tyres during crucial pitstops.

With a new ban on in-race refueling, the length of pit stops will be dependent entirely on how long it takes to change all four tyres.

Early indications suggest that the target time to replace all four tyres is around the three-second mark, meaning any mistakes will be heavily punished and could cost the teams valuable points.

Ferrari’s innovative new design features a cone-shaped nut that integrates better with the wheel gun.

The nut also automatically fastens, when previously it needed to be pulled manually by a mechanic.

Ferrari designer Nikolas Tombazis said: “We have worked over the winter to speed up the process of changing tyres.”

A number of teams focused on pit stop practice in Jerez this week, as the bad weather made development and set up work difficult.

Alex Kapadia, Operations Team