Tire fires in Kuwait have a much smaller climate influence than methane emissions from cows, contrary to claims

On 23 November 2024, a video was posted on instagram with striking footage of a large field of burning tires and billowing plumes of black smoke. The video gathered over 239,000 likes after  claiming that the smoke from burning these tires impacts Earth’s climate more than methane (CH₄) emissions produced by cows (cattle). 

However, this isn’t the first time this footage was used to make claims about climate change. A video posted on TikTok in July 2023 shared footage of this event and claimed that tire burning in Kuwait influences climate change more than emissions from cattle. However, in that video they mention carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions instead of methane. 

Investigations suggest the fires at the Salmi tire dump were criminal acts, not part of normal operations

Despite sharing the same footage, the information from these videos doesn’t match. Not only do the videos mention different types of greenhouse gases, but they also report very different numbers of tires that were burned: one video claimed it was 7 million tires, and the other, 42 million. In this review, we will clear up the details of this event and see how its climate change influence compares to methane emissions produced by cattle. 

Footage of this event showed billowing clouds of dark smoke rising from a vast field of burning tires, but details about the event didn’t match up between social media posts. So what actually happened?

By searching keywords from the instagram video, Science Feedback found a report on the event by global news outlet France 24 (linked here). France 24 reported that on 29 April 2021, a fire broke out in the Salmi tire dump – a vast open landfill in the Kuwait desert that stores an estimated 60 million tires. According to a report of this event, the Salmi site (Figure 1) is considered the world’s largest tire dump and spans roughly 3 square kilometers (km²).  

According to the France 24 report, this so-called ‘tire graveyard’ accumulated in the 1980s and 1990s due to Kuwait’s business of importing tires from countries around the world. This practice came to an end when it was banned in Kuwait in 2001, but the problem remained: Kuwait had millions of tires and no actionable plans to deal with them. 

However, this does not mean that site operators are burning them to solve the problem. France 24 interviewed Fatma Al Zalzalah, a recycling engineer in Kuwait, who explained that investigations revealed the fires were criminal acts. In other words, the fires are unintended events, not part of some ongoing process conducted at the Salmi dump site. A local news outlet, Kuwait Times, reported that the Accident Investigation Department of the Directorate-General of Fire Department (DGFD) investigated fires at the dump and found traces of combustible liquids at the site and suggested the fires might be an act of arson. This important context was missing from videos on social media that misleadingly portrayed the fires as part of some ongoing, intentional process at the Salmi tire dump that could be the missing culprit for climate change. 

Evaluation of the ‘worst-case scenario’ greenhouse gas emissions from tire fires in Kuwait

Regardless of what caused these fires, they still have negative environmental consequences. As explained by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), burning tires can emit air pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), benzene, styrene, phenols, and butadiene. Air pollution from these tires is an obvious negative outcome for humans and the environment, but what role do these burning tires play in climate change?

According to the Kuwait Times report, three fires were reported at the Salmi dump in 2021. The April 2021 fire – featured in recent social media videos – was extinguished after 7 hours. Both Kuwait Times and Arab Times, another local news outlet, reported that the area affected by the fire was 40,000 square meters, which is roughly 1.3 percent of the total dump area. The exact number of burned tires was not reported, making it difficult to quantify the exact emissions from this event. Instead, if we greatly overestimate the number of tires burned, some easy calculations will show if a ‘worst-case scenario’ fire at the Salmi dump would produce emissions that are even remotely comparable to what cattle emit each year. 

It is well-established that burning tires releases greenhouse gases – molecules which absorb and reemit radiation causing Earth to warm. Scientists have analyzed the types and quantities of greenhouse gases released from burning tires. Using this data, we can estimate greenhouse gas emissions from this event and compare it to those produced annually by cattle. 

Again, Science Feedback did not find the exact number of tires that were burned, but the number is less than 60 million tires – the total number at the site – as indicated by news reports of the total affected area, which was roughly 1.3% of the dump site. So to calculate the worst-case scenario, we will assume in the calculations that all 60 million tires at the site are being burned and converted to CO₂ – the primary driver of recent global warming^[1] and the bulk majority of the gas that’s produced when a tire burns, according to tire combustion studies^[2]. This calculation is shown in Figure 2 below. 

*Notes:

The value for CO₂ released from a burning tire was obtained from Downard et al. (2015)^[2]. This value is 2,890 grams of CO₂ produced per kg of tire burned (or 2.89 kg/kg). Note that, somewhat counterintuitively, combustion can produce byproducts that are heavier than the original material. For example, when CO₂ is created from burning tires, the O₂ portion – two oxygen atoms – are pulled from the surrounding air and the carbon (C) comes from the tires. So, because combustion takes some mass from the tire and some from the air, the final product is heavier than tire material alone. 

Other gases are released in smaller quantities but the contributions are negligible given the gross overestimation of tires being burned, and thus the gross overestimation of greenhouse gas emissions. 

Cattle methane emissions have a greater impact on Earth’s climate than fires at the Salmi tire dump in Kuwait

So how does this compare to cattle emissions? According to the U.S. EPA, cattle produce roughly 104 million metric tons of methane globally each year. This is 67 times more greenhouse gas (by mass) than what the worst-case scenario fire could emit at the Salmi dump site (Figure 2). And that comparison alone is actually an understatement because it does not account for methane’s potency as a greenhouse gas. As explained by the U.S. EPA: “Though CO₂ is more abundant and stays in our atmosphere longer, methane is more damaging. In fact, as a greenhouse gas, methane is 28-times more powerful than CO₂ on a 100-year timescale and 80-times more powerful over 20 years.”

Cattle produce methane gas because they have what are called ‘ruminant digestive systems’, which ferment the foods they eat and produce gas. Most of this gas is emitted through belching (burping) – a detail that was missed in the claim-making social media videos which suggested that ‘cow farts’ are blamed for climate change. For many reasons – such as not seeing them in our daily lives if we live in urban areas – it’s easy to mistakenly ignore cows as an important source of greenhouse gas emissions. However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) explains that emissions from cattle are significant because they exist in high numbers in many countries and have a high rate of methane production^[3]. 

In summary, even with a hypothetical scenario in which every single tire at the Salmi dump burns, the greenhouse gas emissions would be roughly 67 times less (by mass) than those produced by cattle. Additionally, by mass, methane – which is the main greenhouse gas that cattle produce – is more potent of a greenhouse gas than CO₂ in terms of its ability to warm Earth (Figure 3). 

The evidence above shows that it is inaccurate to claim that the April 2021 Kuwait tire graveyard fire has a greater climate impact than methane emissions from cows. Even when emissions for this event are greatly overestimated – as simulated in Figure 2 – they are far less from those emitted by cattle. 

It is also misleading to claim that ‘cows are blamed for climate change’. Methane – including that which is produced by cows – does play a large role in climate change; in fact, the IPCC explains that observed global temperature rises in recent decades have been human-caused with warming predominantly from CO₂ and methane^[1]. Methane has now reached concentrations that are unprecedented in the last 800,000 years^[1], and given its potency as a greenhouse gas, it is certainly a key part of climate change discussions.

However, climate scientists do not suggest that methane – and specifically that which comes from cattle – are solely responsible for climate change. Contrary to this claim, explanations from climate scientists acknowledge multiple factors – not just cows. The IPCC explains that “Human-caused climate change is a consequence of more than a century of net GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions from energy use, land-use and land use change, lifestyle and patterns of consumption, and production”^[1]. Though these activities have increased other greenhouse gases, climate scientists have explained that CO₂ is the main driver. Although methane is a more potent greenhouse gas by mass, humans have produced far more CO₂ and it stays in the atmosphere longer, thus having an overall stronger and long-lasting greenhouse effect that warms Earth’s climate.

That being said, cattle do produce a significant amount of methane which, as we noted earlier, is a potent greenhouse gas that exacerbates global warming. When looking more broadly at all livestock and agriculture, the U.S. EPA explains that “Researchers have found that 37% of methane emissions from human activity are the direct result of our livestock and agricultural practices.” Scientists explain that enteric fermentation – the process by which cattle, for example, produce methane – accounts for roughly 44% of the total global livestock greenhouse gas emissions (Figure 4).

Despite the inaccuracies and missing context in the claims we assessed, it is worth noting tire burning has other negative consequences outside of greenhouse gas emissions. Burning tires also release gases that negatively impact human health and the environment. As explained in a 2015 tire combustion study published in Atmospheric Environment: “Many pollutants emitted from tire burning are toxic, carcinogenic, and/or mutagenic; together, they present significant health hazards.”^[2]

References

• 1 – IPCC (2023) Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report.
• 2 – Downard et al. (2015) Uncontrolled combustion of shredded tires in a landfill – Part 1: Characterization of gaseous and particulate emissions. Atmospheric Environment.
• 3 – IPCC (2007) Climate Change 2007: Fourth Assessment Report. 
• 4 – IPCC (2021). Sixth Assessment Report.