Kargro Group Takes Rumal to Asia

Asian tyre markets are perhaps not the easiest markets for a company focusing on the buying and selling of casings and used tyres. However, said Ko van der Heijden, director of the Dutch Kargro group, the Tyrexpo Asia show always has been and still is “a good show for us.” This is true in particular because the Kargro group has put much effort into the development of its subsidiary, Rubber Maalindustrie Limburg, known in short as Rumal. As a recycler of scrap tyres Rumal has been among the leading European tyre market players for two decades now, Mr van der Heijden said. In Rumal’s recycling facility in the Netherlands’ south about 35,000 tonnes of scrap tyres are processed every year and are shredded to become tyre granulates or rubber crumb. These recycled products are then employed as a new raw material for the production of flooring material or shoe soles. While to date Rumal has mostly served customers in Europe, according to the company’s director the Kargro group is now also trying to obtain a foothold in Asian tyre markets– Rumal is actively looking for new customers in Asia.

Casings, or rather scrap tyres, which are used as fuel to run recycling facilities, are at present only very rarely bought in Asia. But when such a purchase does take place, the director continued, it is almost exclusively A brands that are collected from there and brought to Europe. If they don’t enter the group’s recycling process they are then either sold to retreaders or used in Kargro’s own retreading plant, which retreads truck tyres using Bandag pre-cured technology – Kargro is a Bandag licensee.