News: Tire Recycling & Pyrolysis

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.

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.

This September, Robert Weibold attended the First International Cooperation Summit on Tire and Rubber Recycling in Kunshan, China, on 16 and 17 September 2019. The event gathered industry participants from all over China, as well as from the European Union, the United States and other countries. Proclaimed by Zhu Jun, the president of China’s Tire Recycling Association (CTRA), the motto of the summit was “Environment first, Resources second; no mercy to polluting technologies”. As he and many other speakers asserted, China had gone a huge transformation in the tire recycling industry over the last 10 years.

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Greentire is an Italian end-of-life tire recycling company taking innovative approaches to boost circular economy. The company cooperates with Activa – specialists in the field of chemicals for bitumen and asphalt mixes – whose general manager Francesco Santella was in charge of the project and research studying the possibility of making asphalts that would contain rubber from recycled end-of-life tires (ELT).

Tire pyrolysis is a complex capital-intensive business which requires much know-how and which is rather challenging to successfully run today. However, we are convinced tire pyrolysis has a bright future ahead. First, let’s consider reasons which make this business challenging. In the OECD countries, tire pyrolysis is hampered mainly by national regulations. For instance, in Germany, fuels obtained from recycled rubber are banned for use in vehicular engines.