News: Tire Recycling & Pyrolysis

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry has shut four tire recycling factories in Riyadh, Jeddah and Khamis Mushayt (Saudi Arabia) for violating quality and safety regulations, Arab News reports. Inspectors from the ministry and the Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization (SASO) conducted the inspections. Eight factories were warned to improve their processes in six months to avoid closure. The teams inspected 17 tire recycling factories in six cities and found that the end-of-life tires used for recycling were unfit for this purpose. The factories lacked the required machinery, technically qualified workers and a performance checking system.

The Shiban end-of-life tire recycling factory continues its production of mini rubber pellets of various sizes, as reported by Libya Herald. Reportedly, the factory has received much praise and won the 2020 SME Expo award for best SME project. The business relies 100 percent on local workforce and local raw materials – which was cited for its winning the prize. The factory is referred to as a local champion and an example for others budding local SMEs. It has also helped Libya’s major environmental headache of discarded end-pf-life tires which filled landfills or were incinerated. It is hoped that Libya can now implement similar projects for the country’s waste and end-of-life materials which are currently buried in landfills. A similar tire recycling plant also exists in Benghazi, the Libya Herald reports.

An online magazine “The Better India” reports about an entrepreneur based in Pune, India, who turned her cash prize from ‘Startup India’ into a footwear brand Nemital that uses recycled end-of-life tire rubber. “I was in my last semester to complete post-graduation in renewable energy from The Energy and Research Institute (TERI) and started hunting for a job in the renewable energy sector,” Pooja Apte, the 28-year-old entrepreneur, recalls for The Better India. “During the process, I learned there are not many people working in the field of upcycling textile and plastic. I decided to work on tires and started experimenting,” she says.

Australian Trailer Magazine reports that over $100,000 in fines have been issued in the past three months to people who have been illegally operating in the end-of-life tire industry in Queensland. The Department of Environment and Science (DES) has also issued 16 Direction Notices to immediately cease activities for operators in breach of the Environmental Protection Act 1994. Environment Minister, Meaghan Scanlon, said ensuring waste was handled appropriately was fundamental to protecting the environment and our communities. “Guaranteeing licensed waste operators who follow the law are protected from operators who are not licensed is also important to the economy,” she said.

In the virtual information disclosure published by Scandinavian Enviro Systems (Enviro) on March 2, the company responded to questions on subjects that include the license agreement with Michelin. In the information disclosure, Enviro also reported on how the partnership with Michelin is relevant from a strategic perspective and what the company’s long-term plans are.

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Michelin – one of the world's leading tire manufacturers – says in its press release from February 23, 2021 that it is committed to making automotive tires 100% sustainable by 2050. This is an ambitious but realistic target for the Group, which positions itself as a leader in sustainable mobility. Appearances can be deceiving, the company says. This adage definitely applies to Michelin’s tires, which are high-technology products made of more than 200 components. They’re much more complex than they appear, which means that ensuring that all the tire’s components are sustainable presents a significant challenge.

Since it was founded in 1962, Maris, a manufacturer of co-rotating twin-screw extruders, has claimed one of the leading positions in the research of new state-of-the-art applications for its products. With the aim of providing its customers with the widest range of choices, every mechanical component of Maris’ extruders are entirely in-house manufactured. Maris says it’s one of the few companies in the world able to <b>customize its co-rotating twin-screw extruders according to its customers’ specific needs and this is true also when it comes to rubber devulcanization</b>. Rubber devulcanization is a selective breaking process of an elastomer S-S and C-S bonds, which produces only a limited degradation of the polymeric structure (C-C bond).

Today, tire recycling and cement industries are indeed intertwined. An abundance of scrap tires at specialized stockpiles, as well as well-organized tire collection systems and waste management plans, make it possible to (re)use precious rubber and create value out of waste. Tire-derived fuel (TDF) proves to be an alternative to fossil fuels used in cement production, mainly due to high calorific value of tire rubber and its low price. However, TDF emerged as a popular alternative to fossil fuels in cement production for yet another important reason – environment. Tire-derived fuel helps lower CO2 emissions and serves as a cleaner alternative compared to fossil fuels. Added to this, using scrap tires in cement production helps clean up vast scrap tire stockpiles, which otherwise pose threat to environment and which are often unsuitable as feedstock for tire recycling plants due to its exposure to radiation, sand or other contamination.