Interest in Tyre Recycling Increasing, says Eldan

Eldan can supply tyre industry recyclers with everything from individual pieces of equipment, such as choppers, raspers, separators and granulators through to complete turnkey outfits. All equipment is built by the company in its home country of Denmark. Individual items are modular in design to facilitate a painless addition of more units further down the track should the need arise. The popularity of Eldan products is evident from the number of large outfits it counts as customers, such as German automotive parts giant ATU, who operates six tyre recycling plants with a total annual capacity of 120,000 tonnes.

While Mr. Larsen admitted not all enquires at the Reifen show were strictly tyre centred – he commented that several companies had approached him with an interest in aluminium reprocessing equipment – he said many potential customers are keen to know the full market potential of rubber powder. This potential, he adds, is considerable: “There is an increased interest in tyre recycling due to legislation. For example, Germany generates 600,000 tonnes of scrap tyre per year. In the past this was just burnt as fuel in cement and power plants. Governments are now more focused on pollutants.

“Legislation prohibiting the burning of TDFs (tyre derived fuels) such as tyre chips comes in next year. The forecast is for a greater use of rubber granulate/powder in road asphalt in future. This offers many benefits especially for places like Northern Europe, which has cold winters and warm, wet summers. Traditionally built roads crack easily, but adding a rubber component increases road lifespan. It also decreases road noise.” The largest market for rubber granulate remains for use in sports fields – FIFA, for example, use sports fields surfaced with “artificial turf” containing granulate – this is a major market at the moment, and Mr. Larsen adds that one of the largest end users is Kraiburg.

“Our customers sell much of their output to Kraiburg as our equipment produces a uniform product with steady quality – grade one rubber granulate that is 99 per cent free from steel and fibre,” said Larsen. With raw materials prices increasing across the board, the Eldan product manager confirmed that interest in recovering the component materials that go into tyres is rising. “Granulate is not the only by-product to consider,” he said. “Around 25 per cent of a tyre is high quality steel. With steel prices increasing this recovered product can be sold to steel works as low quality steel. Also a market for fibres – 20 per cent of a tyre – exists. These can be used in insulation and in the building industry.”

The set up for recycling plants in different national markets is to the same standard irrespective of national standards, Mr. Larsen adds. In this way customers can have confidence that their equipment is of a world class quality. The UK and Ireland agent for Eldan is MMH Recycling Systems.