Aesthetic and alternative use of second-hand tyres
A Lawyer and entrepreneur, Mr Waine Owusu, is leading innovation in the use of second-hand tyres in sanitation, gardening and outdoor furnishing.
It all started when he had a challenge with plumbing in his bathroom.
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After several unsuccessful attempts to get the plumbers to resolve it, he decided to get down to solving the problem himself.
With some background in sanitation and landfills in the UK, Mr Owusu decided to use second-hand vehicle tyres for the borders of his soakaway... and it worked!
He never had the challenge again and made savings from the contract money that would have been given to the contractors, who could not resolve his problem.
With time, Mr Owusu resorted to researching more and more into the use of tyres.
He discovered that in Asia and other continents, second-hand tyres were used in soakaways, garden fittings and couches, leg rests and a host of other useful things for indoor and outdoor, including decorative furnishings for homes, offices and hotels.
Compost
Currently, Mr Owusu has and is still perfecting his hobby of using second hand tyres in all manner of useful things.
He recently broached into recycling them into dust and compost bins and is championing his innovation in schools, assemblies and throughout the country, in a bid to improve upon insanitary conditions.
Already, some assemblies have contracted him to supply his invention of compost and dustbins to to their areas.
“We have a lot of used tyres in the country, that is taking up a lot of space in our landfills.
They are causing great challenges with most vehicle accidents attributed to them. Additionally, some burn them to cure the meat, posing a health challenge to all.
By recycling them in an alternative way, we would reduce the pressure on our landfill sites,” Mr Owusu said, when the Daily Graphic visited him at his workshop to see some of his work.
In his work, however, Mr Owusu does not go for the completely worn out tyres. “The strength of the tyre should not be compromised,” he stated.
Creation
Giving a brief about his creation, he explained that the tyres were sourced, cleaned and cut to fit the shape of whatever was intended.
For the compost bins, several tyres were cut and fitted together, either by sewing, clipping or gluing, to form a bin; some netting and allowance for air and for black flies to lay their larvea to aid in faster decomposition of whatever needed to be turned into compost, thus, completed the innovative compost bins.Lastly,
Mr Owusu took his time to paint his bins and the green ones are for refuse that can be recycled into compost from kitchen leftovers for gardening, the yellow for plastics, the red for , the the leftovers or waste that can be recycled into compost for the garden or backyard.
Yellow for glass materials and red for metal and blue for paper.
“This is my contribution to the sanitation challenge in the country,” he told the Daily Graphic.