News: Tire Recycling & Pyrolysis

In its latest press release, EuRIC reported that Europe’s recycling industries expressed dismay at the European Parliament’s adoption of current waste shipment proposals citing major inconsistencies undermining the trade of recycled materials. While the establishment of mandatory recycled content targets for plastics should be applauded, the failure to consider targets for metals and paper is a significant omission that will erode demand and subsequently green investment in new and upscaled recycling facilities in Europe. However, European recyclers were encouraged by the European Parliament’s support of existing proposals that facilitate the export of recycled materials within the EU, such as establishing English as the common language or extended time limits for receiving shipments.

Recently, Tire Industry Research and its CEO David Shaw – acknowledged industry expert with over 30 years’ experience at analysing and commenting on the global tire and rubber industry – published interesting analysis on tire & road wear particles (TRWP). Industry briefing on TRWP Because the issue of tire & road wear particles is now such a hot topic across the industry, Tire Industry Research has prepared some briefing notes on the subject. This was necessary because a lot of the commentary in the public domain contradicts the latest science and appears to be confusing – and possibly meant to confuse.

Irish Mirror magazine reports that Meath County Council is investigating the illegal dumping of over 3,000 end-of-life tires on private forest land near Longwood Village, about 25 km from Dublin. According to the magazine, the incident took place on Thursday, January 12, and Friday morning/night. The end-of-life tires would have been produced by tire manufacturers and/or fitters and dumped by 'unscrupulous waste collectors'. The is now expected to pay a hefty clean up fee of approximately €7,000 and the council is urging all private owners to secure their properties with gates and fences.

BHS-Sonthofen is a group of companies specializing in machinery and plant engineering with headquarters in Sonthofen, Germany. BHS-Sonthofen helps process engineering manufacturing companies increase their production output and to do so at a more efficient rate: the company uses its process engineering experience in the areas of mixing, crushing, recycling, filtration, drying and reaction to alter source materials in a way that will create added value for their customers. Recently BHS-Sonthofen announced that Daniel Zeiler has taken over as Vice President of the Recycling Technology division. He succeeds Alfred Weber, who successfully managed the sales of the Recycling Technology Business Unit since 2007 and retired at the end of last year.

Like other major tire manufacturers, Continental Tire Malaysia is committed to environmental and social responsibility. To highlight and celebrate its accomplishments toward this goal, Contitental hosted an Energy & Environment Day. The event, with the theme "Energizing a Green Future," gave staff members a better grasp of how they could contribute to the company's wider sustainability initiatives. Participants were made aware of how important it is for everyone to work together to support and embrace the changing environment.

Genan – Europe's largest tire recycling company – has expanded its sales team, hiring Key Account Manager Eduard Vogt from 1 January 2023. “We have been looking for a Key Account Manager for Germany, Austria and Switzerland for a while, and it has been worth the wait. It was very important for us to find the right person to take care of our key accounts – and so we have. With insightful experience and an inquiring mind, Eduard Vogt is the perfect match for our team – and for our customers,” says Thomas Ballegaard, Group CCO.

The 28th Annual ETRA Conference on Tyre Recycling will take place Wednesday through Friday, 29 - 31 March 2023 at Le Louise Hotel in Brussels. Influential and informative as always it is the unrivalled ‘one-stop’ shop for all those seeking the latest insights into the worldwide business of tyre recycling. With its focus on providing insights into every aspect of the ever more important subject of used tyre management no other single event comes close to delivering essential insights into our future as an industry with its many conference sessions, exhibitions networking and social opportunities.

In December 2022, Tire Stewardship of Saskatchewan (TSS) announced that CRM®, a crumb rubber manufacturing company will be investing in a new state of the art end-of-life tire processing facility in Saskatchewan. CRM® operates nine plants in North America including plants in Ontario and Alberta and produces crumb rubber to be used in rubber modified asphalt, rubber molded products and as infill in synthetic sports fields. The province will return to having two processors in the province; the existing facility in Saskatoon and the new facility will be in Moose Jaw.

At CES Las Vegas 2023 in Nevada, The SMART Tire Company (STC) recently unveiled an almost unbreakable tire – a technological breakthrough that could revolutionize the industry. Using a technique developed by NASA that has already been used on the wheels of the Mars Curiosity vehicle, STC created its first commercial product METL tires in collaboration with the NASA Glenn Research Center. The award-winning SMART Tire (which stands for Shape Memory Alloy Radial Technology) has a patented load-bearing design that takes advantage of the unique properties of shape memory alloys. These special metals can expand, contract, bend or unbend at a very rapid rate (like rubber) and with so much force that it can move heavy objects. Even with extreme deformation, the tire regains 100% of its shape through phase transitions at the molecular level