News: Tire Recycling & Pyrolysis

The decision of Kuwaiti company to engage in tire recycling business was made in 2017 when EPSCO commenced working with Weibold, an independent expert company focused on tire recycling & pyrolysis consulting and based in Vienna, Austria. To ensure success of EPSCO’s tire recycling project, Weibold carried out market studies, technical due diligence on equipment vendors, down-stream manufacturing evaluation, and pre-installation supervision.

Attempting to cut costs while launching a tire recycling or pyrolysis business, young companies often fall prey to low-quality equipment manufacturers whose equipment does not correspond to their promises. Typically, such a low quality equipment has far more attractive prices and very often it comes from Asian countries, where labor costs are still very low. Despite the low price, such an equipment can kill a young pyrolysis company or significantly undermine it’s operation. In this article Weibold focuses on issues of low-priced pyrolysis machinery and sheds light on the most common problems occurring with pyrolysis equipment suppliers from the Far East.

On February 21, 2020, South Africa’s Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries held consultation meetings dedicated to implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) systems for tire industry in South Africa. End-of-life tire accumulation have become quite an issue in the country, especially given that operations of the waste tire management authority, Redisa, were temporarily halted several years ago. The current report is written based on report by Dr. Ziboneni Godongwana, natural scientist working in the fields of solid waste management and recycling technologies, who personally attended the meeting.

Almost two decades ago TRA launched a unique audit initiative to rate its members ‘better than the rest’. Dubbed the Responsible Recycler Scheme, this audit programme aimed to provide the wider tyre industry, its regulators and the wider public with an assurance that TRA member companies complied with, and where appropriate, exceeded regulatory and best practice norms. Over the ensuing years, member audit scores have achieved very high levels of compliance leading the association to raise the bar even further particularly in areas of ‘best practice’. TRA reports that these new standards will be phased-in during the course of 2020 and will encompass new requirements for data validation, permit compliance and end-destination waste tyre tracking.

The global scrap tire problem has urged a number of business and researchers to seek advancement of circular economy. One of the global institutions that showed their concern with the issue is the Australian Road Research Board. It assessed on what level the sustainability is right now, and it looked at uptake of innovative recycled materials, including end-of-life rubber materials, in roads.

The event will become a perfect platform uniting tire and rubber industry professionals from all over the world. Experts representing all layers of the industry, as well as state authorities and scholars will share their perspectives on the state of affairs for tire recycling. They will also shed light on sustainability and what drives producers towards circular economy models, touch upon topics of tire-derived fuel, tire-derived aggregate, rubberized asphalt, ensuring safety at tire recycling plants, etc.

PROs collaborate with service providers on behalf of tire manufactures. They manage collection and recovery of scrap tires, and can help with research and development. eTracks, incorporated by the Tire and Rubber Association of Canada (TRAC), is one of the PROs functioning in Ontario and it’s responsible for 80 percent of collection and recovery obligations. Ontario now tends to view end-of-life tires mostly as resources rather than waste as it’s possible to process them and get valuable products such as crumb rubber, ground rubber, modified asphalt, gravel substitute. In addition, recycled products can be then used for construction projects, or in paving flooring and so much more.

The 10th Kuwait Waste Management Conference & Exhibition initially scheduled for March 11-12 will be rescheduled for June 9-10, 2020. The event will be devoted to solid waste management, including end-of-life tire recycling, in GCC countries, and will be held on March 11-12 in Jumeirah Messilah Beach Hotel in Kuwait.

This year speakers will discuss problems that challenge scrap tire control and management companies. However, it will also be of interest to enterprises involved in development of tire-derived products in California. The conference will be held at the Holiday Inn Sacramento Downtown Arena in Sacramento, CA. Prospective attendees are now welcome to register for the event. It will become a perfect place for networking and education about scrap tire industry trends in recycling and sustainability, retreading, end-of-life tire management and design of tire-derived products; also, it will shed light on market opportunities that exist in the United States at the moment.