News: Tire Recycling & Pyrolysis

Despite hard efforts of the tire recycling and pyrolysis industry to develop new markets and increase recycling rates, recycled rubber based product markets demonstrate only moderate growth. To tackle the problem and allow thousands of tons of precious materials go back to consumer goods, numerous end-of-life tire management organizations, companies and research labs do their best to find new markets and develop innovative products out of scrap tire rubber.

Partnership will accelerate the development of sustainable synthetic rubber tire formulations, through increased use of recycled tire rubber. Trinseo (NYSE: TSE), a global materials solutions provider and manufacturer of plastics, latex binders and synthetic rubber, has reached definitive agreements with Tyre Recycling Solutions (TRS) on a commercial collaboration and an equity investment in TRS. The transaction is expected to close later this quarter, subject to ordinary closing conditions.

UK’s Tyre Recovery Association (TRA) reports that a Freedom of Information request (*FOI request submitted by ‘Tyre & Rubber Recycling’ magazine) has starkly exposed levels of non-compliance by many operators claiming ‘T8 exemptions’ for their businesses. TRA says that in 2019 inspections of almost sixty sites carried out by the Environment Agency across England revealed more than one third to be legally non-compliant. Further action in the EA, conducted in the first 8 months of 2020, showed the situation to have further worsened with almost 50% of sites visited failing to meet legal requirements.

According to expert opinion in the tire recycling industry, BlackCycle – the research project coordinated by Michelin – can revolutionize end-of-life tire recycling worldwide. This opinion was voiced by experts during a meeting of the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) at its Tires & Rubber Committee on October 15, 2020. There was tangible excitement at the BIR Tyres & Rubber Committee webinar on October 15 following a guest presentation on the recycling of end-of-life tires (ELTs) into secondary raw materials for tires and other product applications.

A Hungarian city of Zalaegerszeg in the Zala region saw the construction of a new rubber bitumen plant capable of recycling 20,000 tons of scrap tires annually; the facility became operative this year. The company behind the plant construction is the local energy and chemical company MOL. Moreover, the development is possible thanks to a huge investment allocated by MOL; at the same time, the State Enterprise Investment Support Program also provided partial funding to the initiative. In total, the sum of investment is estimated at 3 billion Hungarian Forint.

ECO Green Equipment – one of the leading end-of-life tire recycling equipment manufacturers and technology suppliers worldwide – has announced updates to its European sales team. Alejandro Grases and Ricardo Ayala recently joined ECO Green Equipment as sales representatives and from now on represent the European branch of the company. About ECO Green’s new sales representatives in Europe Alejandro Grases’ background goes to mechanical engineering. With over 10 years of experience in the tire recycling industry, Alejandro was a tire recycling plant director at American Tire Recycling in the city of Miami from 2011 till 2018. Part of his duty as the tire recycling plant director, Alejandro handled equipment installation and plant design, sometimes altering characteristics of the machinery.

After the recent release of the 14th Scrap Tire Management Report, U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association’s (USTMA) has scheduled a webinar “What happens to scrap tires in the U.S.?” The webinar will become a review of the USTMA 2019 Scrap Tire Management Summary Report. The report highlights that moving the world forward requires all stakeholders in tire recycling industry to act today with purpose and to share with key stakeholders one’s progress and commitment to sustainability, including tire safety, environmental stewardship and the communities one serves. To learn more about the report, please read our article here.

The innovative road pavement made will be used by Italian Army. Ecopneus reports that the pavement using the recycled rubber from end-of-life tires (ELT) will allow greater safety and durability than traditional materials and will reduce the road traffic noise by up to 5 db. The Logistics Commander of the Army, General of the Army Corps Francesco Paolo Figliuolo, and the General Director of Ecopneus, Giovanni Corbetta, signed a framework agreement for the construction of urbanization works with high performance crumb rubber reducing environmental impact.

The Tyre Stewardship Australia (TSA) has Congratulated Puma Bitumen Australia on winning the Innovation Award in the Australian Asphalt Pavement Association QLD 2020 Industry awards. TSA lauded Puma Bitumen for its great product, strong leadership and innovative work and mentioned it is funding with Puma to upgrade plant and facilities around Australia to supply increased volumes and enhanced crumb rubber products to road consumers nationally. Puma Bitumen Australia’s team recently won the Innovation award in the AAPA Queensland 2020 Industry awards. The invention of OLEXOCRUMB®, which incorporates recycled tyre rubber in a high performance bituminous road binder received the honour from the judging panel.