You may imagine it ’s odd to take several million tyre and dump them in the sea to try and help maritime life , but it seemed like a bright idea for those in commission of these thing in the 1970s .
In 1972 , Broward Artificial Reef Inc. ( BARINC ) came up with a plan that would in the end lead to disaster : combining the job ofdisposing of fomite tireswith the desire to create new homes for fish . The architectural plan was to take around 2 million old tires and let them pass to the ocean floor , where fish would surely flock to the " hokey Witwatersrand . "
The theme sop up a surprising amount of enthusiasm . Over 100 in camera owned sauceboat voluntarily joined in the dumping , as well as theUS Navy ’s shipthe USS Thrush . Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co decidedthat this was just the kind of projection they should be involve in and donate tires and equipment to hold the tires together , while other tires came from dump .
Goodyear liked the idea so much that they even got a Goodyear sausage to drop a gold - paint tire into the ocean as a ceremonial opening to the project . Apress release from the companystated that the tire would " provide a harbor for fish and other aquatic species , " and talk up the " fantabulous properties of scrap tire as Witwatersrand fabric . "
The idea , though well - intentioned , transpire to be a cataclysm , a complete submersed cable car crash .
" The really good idea was to render habitat for marine critter so we could double up or ternary marine liveliness in the area , " Ray McAllister , a professor of ocean engineering at Florida Atlantic University who help organize the project said some old age later , in 2007 . " It just did n’t go that fashion . I look back now and see it was a bad idea . "
Now , settle man - made materials to make reefs is n’t as out of the blue angel as it sounds . Shipwrecks are the most common form of artificial Reef , and vessels have beensunk intentionallyto provide a home ground for ocean critter . What was ill-timed with dump rubber into the sea was just how abstemious it was , and how much tire can drift and relegate apart .
Only a few coinage of parasite grew on the tire , sparsely at that . Worse , currents ripped many of the tires loose . The liberal tires go on tocrush other natural nearby coralsas they slide across the ocean floor , andblocked coral reef from growing . In shortsighted , " they ’re a constantly killing coral - death machine , " as William Nuckols , coordinator of a cleanup spot effortput it in 2007 .
Volunteers and various groups have attempt to recall the tires since it became light the projection had miscarry , but the cobwebby scale of the task is daunting . The US war machine became regard in the cleanup , and managed to remove72,000 of the tiresbefore the Industrial Divers Corporation was contracted to elevate more . Hundreds of thousands have been removed , but many hundreds of thousands remain .
