In the early 1970s, residents of Fort Lauderdale, a city a few miles north of Miami, Florida, witnessed somewhat unusual scenes. Not far from shore, hundreds of private boats spent days dumping vast amounts of used tires into the sea, assisted by a US Navy vessel. They built Osborne Reef, a new artificial reef that its proponents envisioned should have been conducive to marine life, but in a few decades would have turned into a huge environmental disaster that is still not fully resolved today.
By the 1960’s used automobile, truck and other vehicle tires had become a problem for many countries including the United States. In the absence of proper recycling systems, they have been piled up in landfills, often illegal, in rural areas with serious environmental risks. It was not uncommon for some of these landfills to catch fire, with fires that could last for weeks (as the Simpsons teach) and cause the emission of many noxious gases, or for moisture and rain to become infested with mosquitoes.
The need to throw them away to avoid similar problems had led to various creative and questionable solutions, particularly in terms of preserving the environment, including throwing the tires into the ocean on the pretext of creating new barriers on the seabed, which would have enabled marine life to thrive.
And it was precisely on these assumptions that the Broward Artificial Reef (BARINC) was founded in Florida in 1972, a company that had proposed the construction of a large artificial barrier made of tires that would have made it possible to get rid of this waste, and at the same time a new area should be in front Fort Lauderdale Beach could be created where sport fishing could be practiced.
BARINC presented its project in Broward County, where Fort Lauderdale is located, using the example of creating artificial reefs, which at that time were already being built in other countries such as Indonesia, Australia and Malaysia. There was already a small artificial barrier made of concrete blocks where he wanted to park the tires. The county approved the project and Goodyear, one of the largest tire manufacturers, was involved.
Fort Lauderdale News, April 28, 1972
At the height of the initiative, a total of two million scrap tires were dumped in a stretch of sea a few kilometers offshore and at a depth of 20 meters. The construction of Osborne Reef had been widely publicized when Goodyear flown one of his airships over the area, from which a gold-colored hoop was thrown at one point to name the new barrier. When the work was complete, about 150,000 square meters of seabed was covered with tire piles.
Vintage photos collected by 4ocean
Within a few years of the work’s completion, it became clear that Osborne Reef was not a favorite spot for marine life. Most hoops had been lowered into stacks held together with nylon straps or large steel clamps, but in a few years they had given way, making the hoops unstable and unsuitable for housing marine life. Their mobility also had a negative impact on the few life forms that had managed to attach themselves to rubber.
The waters off Fort Lauderdale can also be turbulent due to strong winds and ocean currents. Without anchoring, the hoops therefore moved several meters on the seabed, often crashing into a nearby coral reef and severely damaging it. Osborne Reef became an environmental disaster, but for many years no countermeasures were taken to prevent worse.
Tires destined for the construction of Osborne Reef in an old photo recovered from 4Ocean
It was only in 2001 that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US federal agency that deals with marine ecosystems, financed a small project to initiate tire acceptance. Funding was tens of thousands of dollars, which was not enough to remove large amounts of tires. The technicians managed to recover only 1,600 of the more than two million dumped in the 1970s.
The experience of the NOAA-funded project highlighted the need to organize a more structured plan, but finding the necessary funds was not easy. In 2002, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection enacted some new regulations for companies building along the coast, requiring the removal of some tires from Osborne Reef as a mitigation of the damage caused by their activities.
In 2007, the US Army and Coast Guard were involved in the salvage activities, with some projects to combine the need to clean up the seabed with training divers in various underwater activities. The initiative enabled the salvage of several hundred thousand tires in a few years, with activity focused on the parts of Osborne Reef closest to the coral reefs where the tires had caused extensive damage. The operation was a recognized success of then-President of the United States Barack Obama, but most of the tires jettisoned in the 1970s still remained under it.
US Army divers involved in tire recovery activities at Osborne Reef (US Army).
After the experiences with the Army and the Coast Guard, activities were again under the control of private individuals. Between 2016 and 2019, the state of Florida funded some $4.3 million salvage projects and hired Industrial Divers Corporation (IDC) to salvage as many tires as possible from Osborne Reef. At a maximum rate of 5,000 restores per day, IDC had reached the 250,000 restored tires in Summer 2020, marking another important advance.
As of 2021, the activities have been joined by 4ocean, a company that defines itself as a non-profit dedicated to restoring the marine environment by removing debris and other pollutants from the oceans. To fund its activities, 4ocean sells a bracelet made by recycling tires for $29 and pledges to use at least half a kilo of Osborne Reef waste for every bracelet sold. However, many tires cannot be reused and are sent to a facility in Florida, which incinerates them to generate electricity.
It is difficult to make an accurate estimate of the amount of tires currently on the seabed off Fort Lauderdale. There are certainly a few hundred thousand more and recovery is often contingent on atmospheric and sea conditions making diving difficult. There are no particular automated systems and the work must be done almost entirely by divers.
Jason Jakovenko, a US Army diver, aptly described the impression you get when you reach the bottom: “When you start diving twenty feet, you see it on the horizon, really, it seems like would you see the moon or something like that . It’s strange, it doesn’t look like what you imagine, there are only tires as far as the eye can see, down there ».
(4ocean)
Florida wasn’t the only case of artificial reefs built with tires that performed poorly. Indonesia and Malaysia, where some were built between the 1960s and 1980s, have experienced problems similar to Osborne Reef with severe marine pollution. Storms and rough seas often cause some tires to reach the beaches, creating another environmental concern. Salvage activities are expensive and difficult to carry out, with the result that many marine ecosystems are suffering and will continue to suffer for decades to come from the presence of tires.