Cryogenic mechanical alloying (CMA) is investigated as a viable strategy by which to produce highly dispersed blends composed of thermoplastics and tire, thereby providing a potentially new route by which to recycle discarded tires, Morphological characterization of these blends by near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) microscopy demonstrates that, upon CMA, ground tire is highly dispersed within poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) matrices at sub-micron size scales. Incorporation of polyisoprene (PI) homopolymer into the blends to improve dispersion efficacy is also examined. Neither PI nor the tire is found to interact chemically with PMMA or PET under the milling conditions employed here. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.