News: Tire Recycling & Pyrolysis

Fulton Hogan Australia – a large infrastructure construction, roadworks and aggregate supplier company in Australasia and New Zealand – has recently been certified as a Tyre Stewardship Australia (TSA) Circular Economy Collaborator (Manufacturer). This is a Federal Government Accredited certification which recognises Fulton Hogan for playing a role in utilising Australian generated tire derived materials, contributing to a sustainable society.

Extending the life of commercial vehicle tires (for truck and bus) through tire retreading offers unprecedented opportunities. Sustainability, economical use of raw materials and the circular economy should be reasons for both business and government to consider tires retreading. Nevertheless, the market share of retreaded commercial vehicle tires in the Netherlands is considerably lower than in neighboring countries. Currently, approximately 20% of passenger and freight transport in the Netherlands runs on retreaded tires. In Germany this is 28%, in France 35% and in the US even half of them are on retreaded tires. So in the Netherlands there is still a lot to gain.

Waste tires can become problematic if they are illegally dumped or stored inappropriately, with poorly managed stockpiles potentially creating fire risks and pest problems. The Tasmanian Government is committed to investing in the resource recovery sector and driving the establishment of a circular economy in Tasmania. The Tasmanian Government is tackling the management of waste tires head-on by launching the Waste Tire Reprocessing Grant Program

Bolder Industries, Inc. – the circular solutions provider for rubber, plastics, and petrochemical industries – announced partnerships with Antea Group, Cyclops, and OSQB as Bolder establishes its global footprint with their first E.U. facility at the NextGen District in the Port of Antwerp, Belgium. These partnerships ensure Bolder’s development plans remain on track for commercial operations to begin in 2024, significantly increasing the volume of sustainable BolderBlack® and BolderOil™ available to their customers in Europe and beyond.

Bridgestone – a global leader in tires and sustainable mobility solutions – is planning to help reduce the carbon footprint of its commercial vehicle line of tires by producing radio-tagged tires in 2024. Tires on vehicles like trucks and buses will be linked to a cloud-based system that is designed to help clients maximize the tires’ lifespan and minimize their carbon footprints. By the end of 2022, Bridgestone intends to begin expanding its plant in Warren County, Tennessee. As part of this renovation, it will install production equipment capable of embedding tires with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.

Mars Mineral – an American manufacturer of agitation pelletizing technology with pin agglomerators, disc pelletizers, and deep drum pelletizers based in Pennsylvania – has been awarded a contract to design and manufacture a new pin mixer for Warsaw, Poland-based Contec S.A., an environmental services company that uses pyrolysis to extract recovered carbon black (rCB) powder grades, as well as pyrolysis oil and recovered steel from waste or end-of-life tires (ELTs). The Mars Mineral pin mixer transforms the rCB powder into pellets, making them ready for packaging and transport to Contec’s end-partner customers. rCB pellets are used in tire, paint, plastics, and rubber manufacturing.

Orion Engineered Carbons (OEC) – a specialty chemicals company – has reached a major sustainability milestone, becoming the first to achieve International Sustainability and Carbon Certifications (ISCC Plus) for multiple carbon black grades made from different feedstocks at plants in two regions of the world. The ISCC PLUS certification involved rigorous audits of Orion’s plants and processes that confirmed the company’s compliance with high sustainability requirements. It also verified the transparency and traceability of sustainable raw materials in the company’s value chain at three plants producing the concerned grades of carbon black.

A Chicago-based couple will use their love of DIY design and recycling to construct an Airbnb rental out of end-of-life tires on their property south of Grand Rapids. Last month, Kim Sullivan and Clayton Brown won $100,000 from a $10 million contest hosted by Airbnb. The money will enable them to realize their dream of constructing a house out of recycled tires that will be featured on Airbnb's website under the OMG! category.

Martin von Wolfersdorff – a renown carbon black expert from Berlin – started a monthly recovered carbon black newsletter on LinkedIn! In the inaugural October edition, he highlighted some interesting events in Q3'2022. Martin von Wolfersdorff is a world-class expert in pyrolysis and recovered carbon black as well as marketing of specialty chemical materials. He is deeply involved in the industry, serves one of the organizers of the first global conference on recovered carbon black and has been supporting multinational companies in the tire pyrolysis sector, the tire industry, tire trade organizations, rubber and the plastics industries.