UAE’s largest tyre recycling plant enters service

In November, the largest tyre recycling plant in the United Arab Emirates officially opened. The facility, in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, was set up by Danish recycling machinery specialist Eldan Recycling and can process up to 8,000 kilograms of old tyres per hour and produces granulate between 0.5 and 4 millimetres.

Old tyres are shredded, further downsized and sorted in a number of steps within the plant before the rubber granulate, which is 99.9 per cent free of steel and fabric emerges as the end product. The plant can process waste tyres without pre-treatment and is capable of further capacity expansion. Commenting on the new facility, Jamal Abu Issa, president & CEO of plant operator Omnix International, commented: “The market potential for the rubber granulates is high. Possible finished products from rubber granulate are surfaces for sports fields and playgrounds, insulating material for noise insulation or hoses for the under soil irrigation of plants. The rubber granulate can also be used as an additive to asphalt for road construction.”

According to a press statement announcing the plant’s inauguration, currently less than one per cent of all waste in Abu Dhabi is recycled and the country is home to several million old tyres, many of them in unmanaged landfills. Thus the new tyre recycling plant will in future make a major contribution to the expansion of recycling activities planned by the Centre of Waste Management, Emirate of Abu Dhabi. “This region, including the entire United Arab Emirates, is expanding faster than any other market globally,” stated Dr. Toni Reftman, managing director of Eldan Recycling A/S. “Not just expanding fast, but they are also a world leader in adopting new technologies, and ideas. We are therefore very happy about installing a complete top modern tyre recycling system here.”