The U.S. dumped 2 million tires into the ocean to build an artificial reef in 1970. Decades later, officials are still trying to clean up the environmental disaster

Humans have been tossing objects in the ocean with the knowledge that once on the seabed they provide shelter for marine life helping to boost populations, thus providing more fish to catch for food. Over the past several decades, there has been a drive to create artificial reefs not only to expand biodiversity and support fishing but also to protect coastlines from erosion.

Our knowledge of what works and what doesn’t has improved with time, but one particular early artificial reef project designed to kill two birds with one stone backfired in a spectacular way. Not only did it not achieve its goal, but it is currently causing environmental destruction to the natural reefs in the area.

Goodyears don’t make good reefs

The beginning of this story can be traced back to the 1960s with America’s and the world’s love affair with motor vehicles. Tires need to be replaced on a regular basis, but back then there really wasn’t any technology for giving old tires new life. So, they ended up in landfills and were becoming a problem.

The people at Broward Artificial Reef Incorporated in Florida got an idea, why not put these unwanted tires to a good purpose and use them to establish an artificial reef off the coast of Fort Lauderdale. They didn’t just go off all willy nilly, they got the greenlight from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The project had financing and help from the government along with a volunteer flotilla consisting of over a hundred private vessels. Goodyear Tire and Rubber even sent their blimp to wish the project well and dropped a gold-painted tire into the ocean for the occasion.

The Osborne Reef, which covers some 36 acres of the seafloor, was born out of some 2 million tires strapped together in bundles attached with steel clips and nylon straps. Unfortunately, marine life it turns out doesn’t really like making old tires their home.

To make matters worse, saltwater corrodes metal, even steel, as well as nylon with the help of sunlight, something that was unknown at the time. So, after a while the tires in the bundles broke loose from one another.

Being somewhat buoyant, the currents and wave action of the ocean were able to carry the tires away from their original resting ground and onto the natural reefs. There they stunted the growth of the reef and even damaged them as they moved back and forth on the rigid surface, thus reducing the population of marine life in the area to boot.

A long, long clean up effort

Broward Artificial Reef Incorporated wasn’t alone in their mindset about using discarded tires as an ideal base from which to grow artificial reefs, which was incidentally heavily promoted by the tire industry. There are over 200 such projects that were put into place around the world including along the coasts of North America, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, and across the Pacific.

Like the failed Osborne Reef, there are efforts to stop the havoc the tires have been and are still creating by removing them and cleaning up the mess that was made. In the case of the Osborne Reef, just over a quarter of the tires have been removed since efforts got underway in 2006, but current projections expect getting to the halfway mark won’t happen until around 2033.

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