News: Tire Recycling & Pyrolysis

Сhina’s reclaim rubber producer, the Asian giant Tianyu (Shandong) Rubber and Plastic Products Co. Ltd, is bringing the crucial tire component to the Indian market. According to the company’s export manager, India shows great demand for the product, but at the same time, the country has a large domestic reclaim rubber industry.

Australian tyre pyrolysis operator Green Distillation Technologies (GDT), which operates a processing plant at Warren in Western New South Wales and is in the capital fund raising stage for another plant in Toowoomba, Southern Queensland, will conduct the first industrial trials of a new thermoelectric device from the United States which converts heat to electric power. The company reports that the technology is a revolutionary new development.

Kal Tire – a Canadian tire manufacturing company – has certified its carbon calculator capable of determining carbon and fuel emissions that retreaded tires managed to prevent. Moreover, Kal Tire also announced that it is set to launch Maple Program that can estimate damage caused to the environment by a customer. The Maple Program relies on Kal Tire’s new carbon calculator’s data when it provides a customer with one to five stars as it estimates the proportion of their fleet running retreads instead of new tires.

Australian tyre recycler Green Distillation Technologies, which has developed a technology that turns worn-out tyres into oil, carbon and steel, has signed an agreement worth up to $50 million to establish up to five tyre recycling plants in South Africa. Volco Power Pty Ltd plans to build the plants in five of South Africa’s nine provinces depending on the volume of tyres available. Although Volco is comparatively new, its predecessor Synchrona, which had the same directors as Volco, specialized in the conversion of municipal solid waste and used tyres into electrity and other forms of energy in over fifteen countries across Africa.

Recovered Carbon Black (rCB) producer Klean Industries Inc. will become equipment supplier for five more India-based rCB upgrading facilities after signing a letter of intent; this move brings an overall number of facilities in the Asian country developed within the last two years to eight. The corporation has noted that the demand for rCB is substantial, and Klean has expansion plans throughout Asia. The demand growth comes at a time when the industry is witnessing virgin carbon black deficit and import levies in India.

Wei Jianhuan, director of the infrastructure office of Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area commented on the road construction saying that rubber asphalt roads on average show greater durability in comparison with conventional paving which requires repairs every 3 to 5 years. They also result in significant traffic noise reduction.

The Arrigoni Group’s Arrigoni Environmental is likely to advance recycling and Extended Producer Responsibility in Chile after the company revealed its plans to build tire pyrolysis plant. The business also announced that it has some $5 million investment for the construction.

India-based Social Action and Environment Group (SAPE) that has been campaigning for prohibition of hazardous types of tire recycling in the Asian state received support from the British Tyre Recovery Association (TRA). The campaigning efforts come at a time when scrap tire export, especially in India, has greatly increased severely damaging processing capacity in the UK and other countries. In addition, the recycling conducted in India is not always subject to the local environmental regulations, according to SAPE’s claims.

Every year, India receives some 300,000 tons of waste tires from countries like Australia, where tires are either recycled, or disposed of. Nevertheless, these processes are not always safe and environment-friendly. The National Green Tribunal of India (NGT) has filed a plea accusing India of failing to come up with efficient scrap tires management solutions – this is alarming as the state is a producer of some 6 percent of total global tire waste. After the move, the tribunal has turned to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) with a request to present a plan that would address the problem of scrap tires control.