News: Tire Recycling & Pyrolysis

ELDAN Recycling A/S – Danish manufacturer of tire recycling equipment – tells about its upgraded tire shredder which now has a frequency drive and, according to the manufacturer, enables to run a plant at the same capacity with significantly lower power consumption. The manufacturer highlights that ELDAN Super Chopper is the natural choice for anyone looking to invest in a heavy-duty pre-chopper designed to handle most materials, including end of life tires, even without prior debeading, cables and electronic waste, refrigerators, aluminium, municipal solid waste (i.e. MSW) to wind turbine wings (cut-off), plastics and industrial waste.

The Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC) recently published a press release about its organizing the 12th edition of its Annual Rubber Conference on October 7, 2019. The Government of Indonesia is hosting the conference in Yogyakarta. In its press release, ANRPC highlights that the smallholder-dominated natural rubber (NR) production sector has limitations to adopt the sustainability norms for NR which are initiated and largely set by the automotive tire manufacturing industry.

Scandinavian Enviro Systems – a renowned tire pyrolysis equipment manufacturer from Sweden – reports that its production company has now obtained ISO certification in accordance with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 regarding the company’s quality and environmental management systems. “Our production has been running in accordance with both certifications for a long time, being certified formally is important in our customer dialogues, as it’s often required,” says Thomas Sörensson, CEO of Enviro.

A new US research on synthetic turf fields that contain tire-derived crumb rubber has found that the material posed no risk to human health. The investigation commenced in 2016 and was run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention / Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (CDC/ATSDR) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The two authoritative bodies worked in association with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

A recent press release by Kal Tire – Canada’s largest independent tire dealer and one of North America’s largest commercial tire dealers – tells about its first thermal conversion recycling facility set to open in Antofagasta, Chile, in 2019. The press release also elaborates on how developing government relationships was just as critical to the company as developing a viable recycling solution.

Max Craipeau, CEO of Greencore Resources in Hong Kong (a former Maxco Industries (HK) Ltd) has been given a role of Chairman of the Tyres and Rubber Committee at BIR Tyres & Rubber. Prior to starting his own business in Hong Kong, Craipeau spent more than a decade working in the recycling sector collaborating with ex-President of the BIR Non-Ferrous Metals Division Marc Natan. Since then, Craipeau has become a prominent name in the recycling and tire industries in Asia and Europe.

Even though earlier media reports stated that the EU was about to introduce a legislation prohibiting the use of artificial turf on playing surfaces, The European Commission stated that the information was misleading. The authoritative body added that it was only focusing its work on health risks posed by some microplastics and looking into developing its sustainable substitutes.

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Today, many developing countries suffer from poor waste management practices and severe environmental problems. This includes not only insufficient wastewater treatment, dangerous chemicals in soil or solid household waste, but also end-of-life tires (ELTs) which, accumulated at landfills, pose threat to human health. Whereas fraught politics is incapable of designing scrap tire management regulations and establishing collection systems, there are other practices which could help. To affect scrap tire management and recycling on local level, one should come up with solutions tailored to people’s economic behavior and habits, and look at their economic needs. This is where crowdsourcing for ELTs comes into play.