EW Swiers and Grainger Invests £62,000 in Recycling Equipment

EW Swiers and Grainger, the York-based tyre recycler has invested £62,845 in recycling equipment including a pre-shredder. The company made the investment last October after it was awarded £25,000 of funding from Resource Efficiency Yorkshire (REY), which is now known as CO2 Sense Yorkshire and European Regional Development fund (ERDF).

As a result of the investment Swiers and Grainger is now capable of processing an extra 6284 of tyres and has reportedly taken on an additional member of staff. The company’s existing shredder had the capacity to shred 360 tyres an hour, but tyres had to be cut manually to feed it and the shredder could not be loaded fast enough to achieve its maximum capacity. Company representatives told reporters that the addition of a pre-shredder means Swiers and Grainders’ processing speed has now tripled, something that allows the company to recycle a wider variety of tyres.

Swiers and Grainger director Rowena Grainger believes the production expansion could not have been achieved without REY: “Our existing shredding machine had the capacity to shred 360 tyres per hour, but cutting tyres manually meant that we couldn’t load feedstock into it quickly enough to achieve that. The new pre-shredder automates tyre cutting. We can now load the main shredder to run to capacity, tripling our productivity,” she told MRW magazine.

REY project manager Steve Ogden said: “Swiers and Grainger is providing an important alternative to energy recovery, landfill engineering and export, which are the other key routes for unusable tyres. This investment has also created a sustainable end-product that other businesses such as equestrian centres value.”

Shredded rubber produced by Swiers and Grainger is used as flooring for riding arenas.