News: Tire Recycling & Pyrolysis

Tyre Stewardship Australia (TSA) reports that more than 1240 end-of-life truck tires have been diverted from landfill, turned into crumb rubber, and used to repair roads across six Tasmanian municipalities in a partnership between Fulton Hogan and Tyre Stewardship Australia. TSA says it is the first-time bitumen modified with end-of-life tire material – which included the equivalent of 40,000 beer bottles of recycled glass, as well as the end-of-life truck tires – has been used in Tasmania. The ground-breaking project paves the way for an expansion of crumb rubber products on roads across the island.

Episode 27 of the Tyre Recycling Podcast features the R&D Director from Recykl Organizacja Odzysku S.A – Przemyslaw Zaprzalski. In this podcast, Ewan Scott interviews Przemyslaw Zaprzalski, who is also a part of the Polish Tyre Recyclers Association to find out why a country with an EPR scheme needs an association.

The institute of Public Works Engineering Austalasia (IPWEA) holds a pitchinar “Crumb Rubber Asphalt: Performance Made Affordable For Council Roads” on Wednesday, October 20, at 10:15 am (Victoria time). In its press release, IPWEA highlights that crumb rubber has long been the territory of state road authorities but a new specification allows an affordable version for the low traffic roads managed by councils. Traditional rubber asphalt in Australia has a high bitumen content making it more expensive than standard mixes & pushing rubber out of reach as a sustainable material.

In this edition, Jornadas Reciclaje will revolve around six thematic blocks: tire management and tire recycling regulations by country; tire renewal; tire treatment technologies; the applications of materials from recycling; energy recovery and alternative transformation technologies. The Conference will last with expert speakers from the industry and research, who will present their latest works on recycling. Some of them will be:

GRI Specialty Tires recently announced that its new tire model “Ultimate Green XT” became “one of the most environmentally friendly solid tires in the world.” The manufacturer says the new product is a premium-plus solid tire that goes beyond the norm to provide the ultimate in performance, sustainability, and efficiency. Powerful and robust, this tire epitomizes GRI's advanced engineering, research, development and manufacturing capabilities. The company said the tire contains 42.8% sustainable materials, which include bio-sourced and recycled materials. The tire is built with natural rubber silica, recovered carbon black and reclaimed rubber from end-of-life tires.

Tyre Stewardship Australia (TSA) – the end-of-life tire management authority in Australia reports that its 2020/21 Annual Report is now available for download. The Annual Report showcases what the TSA has achieved, as well as its future vision. The underlying theme being accountability across the tire value chain. TSA highlights it is proud of its achievements - the organization’s connection and participation with the tire industry this year has been significant. Importantly, the report provides transparency to the TSA’s broad range of stakeholders by acknowledging the wins, and not shying away from the challenges the organization and the industry face.

“Sustainability without compromise” – ROWA Masterbatch says it is imperative that the plastics industry also participates in minimizing the use of fossil resources by closing material cycles in order to achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. ROWA Masterbatch intends to play an important role in this and is therefore successively expanding its portfolio to include increasingly more sustainable products. The company highlights that during the development of the ROWALID® Eco product range, the emphasis was placed on the use of raw materials that significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

A new informative webinar about end-of-life tires will be hosted by Trinseo’s Anamaria (Cioanca) Dragan-lesanu, a leading commercial business strategist and sustainability expert, who will be probing beneath the surface with some thought-provoking questions for the speakers. The webinar is a good opportunity for end-users, tire manufacturers, tire recyclers, researchers, investors and regulators to understand how technological excellence, collaboration, partnerships and long-term agendas drive the transformation of the tire industry towards a circular future and help closing the loop on end-of-life tires. The webinar will take place online, on Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 09:30 AM Central European Summer Time. To register, proceed to the official event page.

The U.S. Tire Manufacturers’ Association (USTMA) seeks to advance a sustainable U.S. tire manufacturing industry through leadership, partnerships with other stakeholders and a commitment to science‐based public policy advocacy. This year, the Association launched a survey available online at sustainability.ustires.org In its recent press release , USTMA highlighted that sustainability drives the business practices and operating principles of the United States tire industry, from engineering innovations that maximize tire longevity and performance, to ensuring driver and employee safety, to preserving the environment throughout the life cycle of a tire. Those efforts and more were captured in the first sustainability report of the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association, published in 2019. The report laid out USTMA’s sustainability visions for the industry and reiterated its commitment to working toward these visions in partnership with relevant stakeholders, including customers, suppliers, legislators, regulators and NGOs. In that spirit, USTMA conducted a materiality survey of its members and stakeholders in Spring of 2020 to help maximize alignment with their sustainability priorities in future USTMA programs and communications.