Black Bear – the Dutch tire upcycling company – has appointed Richard Dikkers as its new Commercial Director. Before joining Black Bear, Dikkers spent thirteen years at Oiltanking, most recently as Director New Business & Market Intelligence. In his new position he will support Black Bear in solving the global waste tire problem with the company’s circular economy-based business model.

Every year, 1.5 billion tires reach the end of their life. The vast majority gets dumped or incinerated, releasing massive amounts of CO2 and destroying valuable resources. Black Bear has developed an environmentally-friendly carbonization process to transform used tires into recovered Carbon Black (rCB) and Tyre Pyrolysis Oil (TPO), two valuable and sustainable materials which it sells to clients worldwide for use in tires, technical rubber, coatings, plastics or inks. Black Bear will develop its first industrial scale plant at Chemelot Industrial Park plant at Chemelot Industrial Park and Dikkers will have a key role in leading the company’s commercial strategy.

Richard Dikkers has a master degree in Business Administration, and was holding various managerial positions in Finance, Sales and Business Development within Oiltanking. With this background, he brings extensive knowledge and experience to Black Bear Carbon.

Dikker says, “Black Bear is ready to roll-out its technology for recovering carbon black from end-of-life tires and realize a significant contribution to the circular economy. I can’t wait to help the company grow to the next level of circular entrepreneurship.”

Victor Vreeken, CEO of Black Bear, is excited about Dikkers joining the team: “At Black Bear, we believe the future of carbon black is green. We have been working very hard to spread the word about our sustainable solution around the world and we are very happy to have Richard in our team. He is an extremely skilled professional that can seriously contribute to our company reaching the next level. We believe that we can save considerable amounts of CO2 in the carbon black market, solve the waste-tire problem and operate a profitable business at the same time!”

About Black Bear

Black Bear Carbon is a green, recovered carbon black (rCB) manufacturer that produces carbon black using end-of-life tires instead of fossil oil as a resource material. Black Bear chooses to change the industry with breakthrough technology and with passionate people; because we believe that we can save considerable amounts of CO2 in the carbon black market, solve the waste-tire problem and operate a profitable business at the same time. Carbon black is a crucial component in rubber, plastics, inks and paints and is used to modify their mechanical and chemical properties into usable products. Almost everything that you see around you that is black in color has carbon black in it. Current manufacturers produce carbon black by combusting oil (the “furnace process”), emitting CO₂ and thereby polluting the environment. Black Bear recovers carbon black from used tires in a clean and sustainable way. Black Bear plans to lead the transition towards a circular economy for tires by rolling out hundreds of tire upcycling plants with local partners around the world, focusing on Europe for its next plants. When it reaches its full potential of repurposing every end-of-life tire with its circular solution, Black Bear will reduce global annual oil consumption by more than 215 million barrels. After an extensive period of experimenting and testing and with a few years production experience, Black Bear is now ready to roll out its concept worldwide and start producing on large commercial scale.

Original article by Black Bear.