Why not remove one of the rims from Earthship tires?

A little bird told me that pounding dirt into tires is really hard, and that the most difficult part is getting dirt in underneath the "upper" rim of the tire. Why not just remove that rim to create a bowl shape?

I know tires have metal threads in them and cutting them is not as simple as carving a pumpkin, but surely there could be some efficient mechanized way to do this to a load of tires en mass? (I'm picturing a flat surface with three wheels mounted on it, all ganged to a motor, that grip and turn the tire against a fixed blade positioned to remove one rim.) The resulting circular rim cutoffs could then be shredded and used as playground mulch, or creatively repurposed in some other way.

Maybe someone has done this already, but I haven't seen it. It makes me think there must be some good reason why not to...

I've read recently that runoff from playground chopped tires killed salmon in a local stream. I think disturbing tires could release toxins, particularly if by "fixed blade" you meant some sort of saw blade.

I think I've heard of this being done.  Also, if the steel belted parts are chipped up, they'd probably have lots of metal slivers in it so probably not the best for a playground...

Yes, that is one of the hardest parts. That also is the part that keeps the dirt compressed so it is a brick and not just a bowl. It is really hard to compact dirt in a bowl, I think it would take LONGER.  

The steel belting is only in the tread and bead. The sidewalls should just be nylon, so are much easier to cut.

I once envisioned a machine with two rotary cutters that worked like a can opener. A tire would be placed on the machine and a lever would move one wheel into place beside the other and it would cut the tire in two right down the middle of the tread, resulting in two equal halves. I thought these could be a good way to use old tires in driveways in soggy ground by filling with gravel, or to build small retaining walls or just otherwise use them to prevent erosion.

R Scott wrote:Yes, that is one of the hardest parts. That also is the part that keeps the dirt compressed so it is a brick and not just a bowl. It is really hard to compact dirt in a bowl, I think it would take LONGER.  

Wouldn't each successive course of tires compress the one below it? (The rim joist/top plate/whatever it's called in earthship parlance is concreted in place and compresses the top course of tires.) If the tire rim is what does the compressing, then that leaves the dirt in the center of the tire uncompressed. You might be right anyway (I only know what I know from YouTube, essentially, so there is a good chance I'm wrong!), but it doesn't seem right to me at first blush.

I’m not sure I can explain it clearly (pretty sure I can’t). But I’ll try.

First, there are LOTS of structural subtleties with Earthship building that don’t get explained on YouTube or in Reynolds’s original “book”. I don’t know if they are explained in the in person school or if they even realize it anymore.  

When you are pounding a tire, you are pushing it OUT and the dirt is expanding UP  until you get to the height you want for that level of tires.  Just like the sidewall expands as you air up a tire on a vehicle, the wall does the same thing as you compress the dirt.  Just gravity is not enough to compress it to stable, the wall would shrink as you build it.

The bond beam rim around the top is to keep things from moving in and out. The wall has to support itself (and the roof)  against gravity.

Cutting off a sidewall is very easy.
Jigsaw,Sawzall or oscillating multitool blade that has been ground to a knife edge are all excellent for this task.
I think cutting out one side will work, mechanically stabilized concrete works like this, though it does generally use gravel.

I think it is absolutely amazing that people are still considering using tires to build anything. Tires are constructed using all kinds of exotic and nasty chemicals. When you bury tires in the ground, they will eventually and inevitably break down. And the chemicals released. You will be poisoning the ground for decades, perhaps centuries, who knows, -maybe longer. You are creating a very long-term mess. One of the first goals of any awake person should be and is, Do No Harm. Burying tires in the ground is not much different than throwing plastic in the ocean. ~Do no harm. Return tires to a recycling center. Don't poison your land.

R Scott wrote:I’m not sure I can explain it clearly (pretty sure I can’t). But I’ll try.

First, there are LOTS of structural subtleties with Earthship building that don’t get explained on YouTube or in Reynolds’s original “book”. I don’t know if they are explained in the in person school or if they even realize it anymore.  

When you are pounding a tire, you are pushing it OUT and the dirt is expanding UP  until you get to the height you want for that level of tires.  Just like the sidewall expands as you air up a tire on a vehicle, the wall does the same thing as you compress the dirt.  Just gravity is not enough to compress it to stable, the wall would shrink as you build it.

The bond beam rim around the top is to keep things from moving in and out. The wall has to support itself (and the roof)  against gravity.

Uhh...I think a diagram or two would help? Sorry, I am a bear of little brain.

@Jim Fry: From what I understand, the matter of whether burying tires poisons the ground, and whether they offgas such that an Earthship's air would be toxic because of its tire wall(s), is not settled. In other words, people are still debating about it, with reasonably informed people on both sides. The "tires are poison, don't use them" side may well be right (I personally don't have a strong opinion either way), but for the sake of this thread we are assuming hypothetically that tires are safe enough to use for residential construction the way they are used in Earthships.

Looking into tire recycling, it seems to uses a lot of energy and water.
The end products  of tire recycling seems to go back into the environment as fill or pavement,  etc.
A lot of used tires are turned into fuel for concrete plants.
None of them become new tires.

I think recycling tires is probably the best thing to do with them, but the pollutants from tires don't go away, they are either sequestered or spread around.
If I were to use them in a structure, I would want to sequester them with concrete.
I'm pretty sure they are not significantly different than asphalt , so I might use them in a driveway as is.
Mind you, I don't grow directly in my yarden soil because it has the remains of a house mixed into it.
No place on earth is untouched,  but we don't need to make it worse.