Putting the Freeze on Old Tyres

Cryogenic technology will be employed in a new tyre reprocessing plant currently being set up in South Wales. The plant in Baglan, which will operate in conjunction with a £2 million pre-processing site in the Midlands town of Wednesbury, will be in operation by the end of May.

The new plant, owned by Credential Environmental, uses technology imported from Finland to process up to a capacity of 50,000 tonnes of tyre waste per year. Once the worn tyres have been shredded at the Wednesbury facility they will be brought to South Wales where liquid nitrogen will be used to freeze the tyre scrap so that it can be broken down into rubber crumbs.

Credential’s divisional director, Steve Patterson, has told media that the powder sized rubber produced by the process is a much sought after product suitable for use in underseals, specialist sealants and mastics (cements used for bonding roofing materials). He believes the market for rubber crumb will grow as the product gradually begins to replace new rubber in higher value products.

It is hoped that 2,500 tons of rubber crumb will be processed monthly by the end of the year. Three quarters of the plant’s output will initially be purchased by FieldTurf Inc.