When Sangho Alhousseyni was granted a working permit in the US, he started out by driving for Uber. He studied English and business by day, and drove clients around Philadelphia by night. Exhaustion caught up with him; he wasn't making enough money to pay his tuition and living expenses, and he kept having problems with his car tires. He needed a better plan.
So, with tires on his mind, he began to think about all the people in professions that require a lot of driving and their need for tires. He also began to notice his social feeds were full of upcycling stories from Mali, his home country.
Individual entrepreneurs were giving old tires second and third lives, not only for driving, but also as furniture, floor mats, patio pavers, roofing materials, and even houses.
Around the world, abandoned tires pollute the environment, take up space in landfills, and collect water that breeds mosquitoes. In Philadelphia city workers must frequently haul away illegally dumped tires.
Possible end-of-life tire solutions include: Retreading tires to extend their useful life; recycling and repurposing them for new uses, and energy recovery. Research shows that when the process employs thermal treatment technology, tires can yield a cleaner burning fuel than both oil and coal.
Inspired by the entrepreneurs recycling tires in his home country, Sangho plans to build from selling used tires to recycling. To that end, he is looking at models in South and West Africa and in the US, where tires are shredded, materials are sorted, and then turned into another kind of product.
Sangho began his tire journey in 2018 when he rented a shop on Chestnut Street and sold new and used tires. In West Philly, he found a solid market for good quality used tires. He expanded his clientele by giving customers free car washes.
Over time, he built up his network with police precincts who needed tires and car dealerships that had tires to sell. When dealerships sell certified preowned vehicles they must often change out the tires to ensure the cars have matching sets. This leaves the dealerships with a lot of tires to get rid of; Sangho purchases them in large quantities.
Everything was going well until the pandemic hit. Sangho managed to keep his shop open because essential workers still needed to work, and they still needed tires, but he expanded more seriously into car washing to make ends meet. Eventually he partnered as a manager for a car wash on Grays Ferry Avenue.
By the time his contract ran out at that site, he'd saved enough money to fulfill a dream, to open his own tire and car service center as the sole owner and manager. He still saw reselling and eventually recycling tires as his growth path.
But his first shop, off the highway in Point Breeze, nearly cost him his entire savings. The equipment he needed to open was expensive, and he had trouble attracting enough clients to be able to make rent. After less than a year, he had to let the shop go.
Eventually, with the help of a GoFundMe effort published in these pages in February of 2023, he was able to buy a used tow truck and begin again. And a little over one year later, Sangho is back on track with a new service center. At Sangho's Tire Shop and Auto Repair located at 9430 State Road in Philadelphia, he is once again making tires a central part of his business.
In addition to selling used tires in the local community, Sangho has begun sending them back to Mali. "People in Mali, and all over Africa love the used tires coming from the US because they can last longer than the brand-new tires coming from China."
Exporting the tires from the US creates more jobs here and in Mali, Sangho says. And he increases sustainability by sending them on container ships. He fits small tires inside of larger ones and thus can pack as many as 3,500 tires into one shipment. He has recently sent his second batch.
One day, Sangho hopes to become a tire hauler with the city. But first he needs to invest in the plant and processing equipment. "My dream is to work with the City of Philadelphia to clean up tires from the streets," he says.
"My big goal is to collect all the scrap tires in the city and create more jobs to teach the young people we can make money the right way, [rather] than being on the street selling drugs and getting killed in the United States—this country of opportunity."
Currently he says his new shop is doing great. "I'm selling tires for as low as $35—the cheapest in the city."
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