News: Tire Recycling & Pyrolysis

The European Tire and Rubber Manufacturers Association reports that in the context of the “Circular Economy Stakeholder Conference: Together for a cleaner and more competitive Europe” held on 3-4 November 2020, ETRMA joined forces to bring further the EU Commission commitment to scope, during 2020-2021, the development of possible further Unionwide end-of-waste (EoW) and by-product criteria (BP).

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.

Scandinavian Enviro Systems (Enviro) reports that its representative in the UK market, 2G BioPOWER, has been granted the equivalent of EUR 240,000 in state funding for a feasibility study that will investigate the possibilities for the large-scale introduction of Enviro’s recovery technology for end-of-life tires in the UK. According to Enviro, the objectives include investigating the possibilities for recovering oil and carbon black from domestic end-of-life tires.

Tyre Stewardship Australia reports that it partners with RMIT University on a ground-breaking research project evaluating the performance of crumb rubber in asphalt made from end-of-life car tyres. The project, co-funded by TSA, RMIT University and the Victorian Department of Transport (DoT, Australia), will evaluate to what extent and in what proportion – when mixed with truck tyres, for instance – passenger car tyres can be recycled in road asphalt pavements.

The patented Eagle Punch Cutter II is portable and designed to split Off the Road (OTR) tires into two halves, cutting through the center of the tread. It can handle a range of tire sizes, from a rim size of 39 inches and a tread width of 37 inches up to, and including, rim size of 63 inches and tread width of 70 inches. A blade is used to punch the tire while a programmable logic controller (PLC) controls the rotation of the tire and the punching process, allowing the operator to set the machine, press the start button, and let it run.

ECO Green Equipment – one of the world’s leaders in end-of-life tire shredding equipment helps Missouri-based trucking company convert old truck tires into rubber mulch. ECO Green’s recent press release reports that Prime Inc., a Missouri-based trucking company, had been devoted to retreading their used tires. The company discovered that 20% of end-of-life tires couldn’t be retreaded, and those tires — all 100,000 per year — were ending its lifecycle at landfills. With the help of ECO Green Equipment, they’re improving the environment by creating environment-friendly valued-added products and making money while doing it.

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.