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When we think of the impact cars have on the environment, we often consider the gas they guzzle and the emissions they create. But these modern forms of transportation also produce another environmental toll: old tires.

“Scrap tires are thrown all over the corners of our country, and there are people who burn them in order to extract steel,” says Dagim Asrat. “One small tire releases so many chemicals when it burns, and that pollutes the waterways and the air.” Through his social innovation, Prime Recycling, Dagim is making sure tires from all modes of transportation are given a second life.

Prime Recycling is Ethiopia’s first tire recycling company. Using a technology called pyrolysis, discarded tires are transformed into raw materials such as crude oil. Pyrolysis is the act of heating something in an oxygen-free chamber until it breaks down into its original form. The crude oil can be processed to make diesel fuel, which will be used to power Prime Recycling’s machines. You can further refine the diesel to produce carbon black powder which is a component of paints, steel ware, plastics, and rubber.

Studying to be a public health officer at Hawassa University in southern Ethiopia, Dagim’s journey to entrepreneurship began when he heard about a social innovation competition DOT Ethiopia was running on International Youth Day. That was when he began trying to find an innovative idea that would help society. “My observations showed many people were engaged in recycling waste, but not tires or plastics,” he says. “The unique thing about tire recycling is that you do not need to import other chemicals to break it down, which is good because they are hard to find in our country.”