News: Tire Recycling & Pyrolysis

RubberCon together with International Rubber Conference are global conferences organized every year by The International Rubber Conference Organisation (IRCO), which is an association of rubber societies from all around the world which plan the calendar for the main international rubber conferences. Following on from success of RubberCon in April 2019 in Hangzhou in China, the event is returning back to Europe. The venue will be the Novotel Paris Centre Tour Eiffel. RubberCon 2020 (the name is retained despite the rescheduling to 2021) will be around "Environment and Recycling: A Strategic Challenge for Rubber Materials."

According to the recent press release, Energy Estate and InfraCo announced a joint venture “REVYRE” to develop and build innovative tire recycling plants in Australia and New Zealand, utilizing two revolutionary technologies – Vertech / RubberJet Valley tire disintegration and Tyromer rubber devulcanization. The stakeholders say that currently Australia disposes of over 60,000 tons of end-of-life tires (ELTs) by exporting them and approximately 100,000 tons are stockpiled in landfills or stockpiled onsite (predominantly within the mining and agricultural sectors). With the COAG agreed ban on used tire exportation from December 2021 the annual growth in Australia’s tire stockpile will be even greater. New Zealand currently generates 5-6 million ELTs annually which equates to close to 70,000 tons. These units are either shredded locally for domestic burning in cement kilns as Tyre Derived Fuel (TDF) or are baled and exported for use as TDF in Asia, the press release pinpoints.

New Zealand’s North Canterbury has a huge end-of-life tire stockpile, which has been attracting public attention over the last years and grew into a big problem. Efforts to clean up the stockpile have picked up pace with two parties who are now in a competition race. Press reports that the tire stockpile has been a concern for the community for more than four years, and it was deliberately set alight in 2018. Both removal bids have Environment Canterbury (ECan) backing. New Zealand’s magazine Stuff reports that “Community-led group Accountability Action was formed in response to a lack of action by authorities and enforcement breaches by the companies responsible for the tires, Tyre Recycling Services New Zealand Ltd and 2016 Tyre Shredding Ltd.”

According to the news, the facility will be located in Zaozhuang (Shandong province, China) – headquarter location of Star Smith, who is a renowned producer of glued steel fiber. The source says that the construction involves an investment of EUR 28 million and, after commissioning, will recycle end-of-life tires into some 60,000 tons of high-performance rubber per year. Swiss TRS is known for its “Water Pulse” process, which highly specialized water-jet system pulverizes tire tread into fine powder, free from steel and synthetic fibers and serves as a foundation for producing rubber powder under TRS’ trademark TyreXol.

SLTC – The Latin American Society of Rubber Technology (The Sociedad Latinoamericana de Tecnología del Caucho) – recently proudly announced the launch of their new Recycling Committee. SLTC highlighted its organizational scheme and general objectives, which we describe below. According to the SLTC, the Recycling Committee was born out of the need to find a place where all stakeholders related to tire recycling in Latin America can actively interact to enrich and develop the industry.

Scientists at Flinders University in Australia have developed a new type of rubber that is “super-adhesive” and that, when combined with a special catalyst, becomes self-healing. According to recently released news, researchers in Australia created the rubber using only end-of-life materials, including sulfur, canola cooking oil and dicyclopentadiene from petroleum refining. This rubber, when damaged, is able to quickly repair itself at ambient temperature using an amine catalyst. In matter of minutes, damaged rubber, reportedly, gets as strong as before.

“With little income just now, businesses still have overheads to meet while recycling gate prices are very much higher than at this time even a year ago. Furthermore, cash flows are under pressure like never before. The temptations are obvious and some will undoubtedly be driven to take in the nations old tyres at prices well below what are now necessary to move them properly through our recycling infrastructure. I suspect that many are being driven more by hope than expectations and faced with this financial reality will simply ‘dump and run’ leaving property owners and the public purse with yet again an ugly and very expensive problem. We must not allow this to happen. We can all play our part,” continues Taylor, “the Environment Agency and our other regulators must continue to offer help to operators but at the same time apply the test of realism in their role as enforcers.”

According to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), Texas is well-known among other American states for its end-of-life tire problem. This May, Eco-Flex – one of the leading tire recycling companies in Canada – announced it would establish a major manufacturing, distribution, and sales center in Lampasas, Texas to help tackle the problem. The new tire recycling plant is expected to bring up to 200 jobs to the area while supporting the state’s progressive economic growth plans. The construction of the 25,000-square-foot tire recycling plant is expected to begin on June 2, 2020.

Kal Tire’s new carbon calculator quantifies environmental savings when retreading tires. The company recently announced the certification of its new carbon calculator that is able to determine fuel and carbon emissions saved by retreading earthmover tires compared to buying new. With that, the company is launching its Maple Program, which quantifies a customer’s environmental impact as they grow their fleet with tire retreads.