News: Tire Recycling & Pyrolysis

During August 2020, Weibold's webinars about tire recycling and pyrolysis business will be on a summer break. Our webinars will resume in September to deliver a high-quality content to anyone contemplating business opportunities in tire recycling or pyrolysis. In September 2020, Weibold is hosting an online webinar conducted by Luis Roca Blay and Nora Lardiés Miazza from AIMPLAS, Spain. Our previous webinars covering introductory and some advanced topics will be available as recordings on our website. Special topic: Holistic approach to the recycling of end of life tires (September 24, 2020).

Are you thinking about starting a tire recycling or pyrolysis business and don’t know where to start? Do you need help in carrying out a pre-feasibility study to see if your ideas prove commercially successful? Below we describe how Weibold’s Pre-Feasibility Study helps novices in the domain of tire recycling and pyrolysis to build a commercially successful business. To build a successful tire recycling or pyrolysis business, first of all one must identify markets and products and design sales channels, which will serve as a foundation to count profitability. This is a rather difficult task, as it is composed of many peculiar and field-specific details, whose research requires a big amount of time.

As circular economy concept and tire recycling are becoming more popular all over the world, the first issue that may arise is the need to secure the raw material, namely end-of-life tires (ELT). Normally, tire recycling companies source their feedstock from collection programs or directly from tire stockpiles. Local ELT stockpiles in developing countries eventually may have limited supplies, because if ELT regulations were not in place before, tires may have been simply landfilled or burnt.

Smithers report that given the continued disruption to corporate travel resulting from COVID-19 and following consultation with key event partners, a decision was made to move this year's Recovered Carbon Black Congress to an online format. The organizer highlights that the online format will enable to continue organizing the 2020 event with confidence and certainty and provide the industry with important insights about the latest developments in the domain of Recovered Carbon Black.

Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reported in the end of July that this year's Colorado 2020 Waste Tire Conference, scheduled for October 15 & 16 in Denver, has been canceled. After a long internal discussion, the department concluded with the uncertainty of the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak and response, the Department felt there were too many obstacles to guarantee everyone's safety both traveling and attending the conference. The Department has not made any decisions on if or when the Conference will be rescheduled.

A renowned auction house Troostwijk has announced an online pyrolysis equipment auction running until late August. A total of 107 equipment items are listed in the auction here, including: Riedhammer rotary kilns (2015) Atlas Copco compressors (2015) Aerzener blowers Netzsch jetmills Lödige continuous mixer air transport systems storage tanks screw conveyors pumps control cabinets heat exchangers spare parts, etc. The auction is closing on August 24, 2020.

What is important to tire recycling and retreading industry, retreaded tires will be partly affected by the regulation, too. In addition, ERJ reports that the UK road safety awareness group TyreSafe has welcomed a recent government initiative to ban tires aged 10 years or older, saying it highlights the importance of the safety of part-worn tires for the public.

A Swedish tire pyrolysis equipment manufacturer and operator Scandinavian Enviro Systems and the French global tire manufacturer Michelin, have extended the letter of intent regarding a strategic partnership which was announced in April 2020. Initially the parties expected that a final agreement would have been reached by mid-year 2020, but the negotiations have been somewhat delayed, partly due to the ongoing pandemic. Therefore, Enviro and Michelin are prolonging the letter of intent until the end of October this year where both companies assess that they will be able to provide more details at the latest. Simultaneously the exclusivity agreement is also prolonged until October 31 this year.

Reportedly, a piece of equipment ignited the fire at a Weld County tire recycling facility, with more than 40 firefighters from different departments, as well as private contractors, worked last week to put out the flames. Greeley Tribune reports that seven piles of end-of-life tires spanning some 5 acres of land caught fire Wednesday evening in unincorporated Weld County, a few miles northwest of Hudson, and though the fire has darkened down significantly, it continues to burn Thursday morning. Platteville-Gilcrest Fire Protection District crews received a call for the fire at 5:28 p.m. Wednesday at CH2E, a tire recycling facility on Weld County Road 41, near Weld 26, according to an agency news release. Initial reports stated equipment was on fire.