TIA to Give Away Thousands at SEMA
The Tire Industry Association (TIA) has announced that two special events are taking place during the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, with each event featuring a cash giveaway of thousands of dollars.
News and feature articles relating to recycling, including collection, of end of life tyres.
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NTDA Members Walk the Halls of Power
Product NewsAs part of the NTDA’s 75th anniversary celebrations, association chairman, Martin Rowlands, and director, Richard Edy invited guests to ‘walk the halls’ of power and attend an evening reception in the Houses of Parliament. The reception was held at the invitation of David Lidington, member of Parliament for the NTDA’s home constituency, Alylesbury.
TRIB Appoints Associate Director
Product NewsThe Tire Retread Information Bureau (TRIB) has announced David Kolman as its new associate director.
Based in California, the TRIB is associated with the recycling of tyres through repair and retreading. Mr Kolman will operate from Baltimore, giving the bureau its first office on the East Coast and adding to its existing group of over 400 members in 28 countries worldwide.
Goodyear President Announced as TIA Expo’s Keynote Speaker
Product NewsThe Tyre Industry Association (TIA) has announced that Jon Rich, president of Goodyear’s North American tyre business, will be the keynote speaker at the 2005 TIA World Tyre Expo.
The North American exhibition of the commercial tyre, retreading, repairing and tyre and rubber recycling industries will be held in Kentucky 20 – 22 April 2005.
New EU Rules Warning from Ford
Product NewsNew EU directives on vehicles are likely to add 5,000 Euros (3,340 GBP) to the price of an average car. Speaking at the Birmingham Motor Show, Roger Puttnam chairman of Ford in Britain, warned that manufacturing margins were already thin and that mounting regulatory costs would have to be passed on to the consumers. Puttnam singled out new rules on vehicle recycling, the control of chemicals and safety, all of which are to be implemented by 2008.
Waste firm wins recycling contract
Product NewsCCR Logistics Systems AG, a German provider of waste-management systems, won a contract from PSA Peugeot-Citroen, Europe’s second-biggest carmaker, to set up and operate a recycling program for the company’s U.K. dealers. CCR Logistics didn’t say how much the contract was worth. The Munich-based company’s contract includes collecting oil, batteries, tires, florescent lighting and other waste from the dealerships.
REG UK Tyre & Automotive Recycling: Leave it to us
Product NewsREG UK Tyre & Automotive Recycling is a subsidiary of Continental Tyres and the company name adequately explains the company’s mission.
In today’s tyre industry, the recycling of scrap tyres is a subject that has grown in importance over recent years and one which has exercised every sector of the industry. REG UK came into existence in 1997, with Conti’s John Campbell named as managing director – indeed, at that time, he was the sole employee. The concept, says John Campbell, came from the then-CEO of Continental AG, Dr. Hubertus von Grünberg. Von Grünberg recognised that Continental spent considerable sums on functions such as R&D and marketing and he believed that the company should complete the circle by offering dealers a route to dispose of their scrap tyres. The idea was tried out first in Germany, with the establishment of REG Deutschland in 1992, with REG UK following five years later.
Today, REG recycles around 40,000 tonnes of tyres annually and large volumes of tyres are being consumed in UK cement kilns, with REG being one of a number of suppliers into the cement industry (the exclusive arrangement with Blue Circle ceased at the end of the 90s). In hindsight, according to John Campbell, “This situation gave REG an opportunity to be more pro-active in its marketing and in looking for new and innovative recycling solutions.”
Not only does REG look round for recycling solutions, but it looks too for recycling opportunities. The company’s remit is not confined to any particular product area – if there is waste to be disposed of, then REG will look to see if it can become commercially involved. While the problem of tyre recycling, reprocessing and disposal is one that affects all manufacturers, there are few who have embraced it to the extent of Continental with the setting up of REG and any that wanted to move in on this market would find themselves playing catch-up. REG is already established and is profitable; living proof of the old adage that “where there’s muck, there’s brass”.
Roger Hicks new MD of Charles Lawrence International
Product NewsRoger Hicks, formerly MD of retreaders Vacu-Lug, has been appointed managing director of recycling company Charles Lawrence International. He has been a consultant to the company for two years and became adirector this January.
No solution for industrial tyre disposal
NewsThe Industrial Tyre Association (ITA) and the Fork Lift Truck Association (FLTA) have warned that there are inadequate recycling facilities for industrial tyres in the UK. Although solid industrial tyres only represent one per cent of the total tyre arisings there are no dedicated facilities for their disposal and there are fewer and fewer landfill sites accepting whole tyres of any sort. The ITA and the FLTA sought some flexibility from the Dti and the Environment Agency, but have been told that the regulations will be rigidly applied.
Uses for old tyres: How many can you think of?
Product NewsT&A has looked at the waste tyre issue several times recently. In fact retreading and recycling is hardly ever missed from the magazine. Our focus has largely been on the legislation, the collection, the mass disposal of tyres and the issues surrounding the problem. There is nothing to say that those issues will go away any day soon. Some of the solutions being wholeheartedly supported at present are not universally popular, and may themselves in time become problems. Most solutions only extend the life of a tyre, or its constituent parts, ultimately the waste will either be burned or buried. The key to winning ground in this battle is to extend the life of the product before it is disposed of. Some say, closing the loop.
If you try asking a granulating company what their products get used for, they will usually admit to Equestrian surfaces, or sports surfaces, but little else. Yet we are told that rubber crumb has a multitude of uses, but what are they?
The article in October’s issue looks at some of the wider uses for waste tyres, serious and not so serious.
Western Isles install tyre baler
Product NewsThe council of the Western Isles, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, has introduced a purpose-built tyre baler at its Bennadrove Recycling Centre. This will compress and bale tyres received at its Rueval landfill site. The horizontal baler, manufactured by German company HSM, was modified to specialise in compressing car and lorry tyres into large blocks. Each block contains about 170 tyres and weighs about one tonne. Council spokesman Nigel Scott said the blocks would initially be used as an engineering material for landfill site development works. He added: “There is considerable potential for other on-island uses as similar blocks have been used in other areas as a sustainable material for coastal erosion defences, road construction and land stabilisation projects.”
Recycling Ireland
Product NewsIreland, the Emerald Isle, the land that has made green its own colour, yet there is nothing much green about the waste management infrastructure North or South of the border. Waste has not been a priority problem until recently. The local authorities, certainly in the North were at one time expecting a further delay in the implementation of the Landfill Ban on whole tyres. Their reasoning was that there quite simply were no suitable alternatives available. There were no tyre shredding facilities in Ireland.
However, the UK government has in its now traditional style not only adopted the latest legislation to arise as a result of an EU directive, but is intent on implementing the new law. That is creating a peculiar scenario in Northern Ireland where, as the deadline approaches, there is still no route to disposal, save shipping them to the UK, or perhaps to the Republic. The former is costly, and the latter may not be sustainable in the long term. With nowhere to take these tyres the gate fees are bound to increase in the run up to the ban, and as the cost of disposal rises, the attraction of players to the market will also increase. However, unlike the mainland UK, there is no widespread network of retreaders or collectors seeking to expand their business into shredding. That makes the Northern Ireland situation one of interest and we spoke to Lynn Kerr, the managing director of ADCO retreading and power behind R4 Tyre Recycling in Portadown to get the lowdown on the Northern Ireland situation.
The situation in the South is similar to that in the North in that there is no widespread tyre collection service. We are advised that what competition exists does so courtesy of a loose application of the law. As in the UK, waste carriers need to be licensed, but rather than a single license giving rights to operate nationally, the licences are issued on a county basis, so to collect in County Cork and shred in Louth, one needs to hold licenses for every county between. However, Ireland has a hidden competitor in tyre collection, something it has in common with France, the agriculture sector in the republic has some 140,000 individual farmers, of whom we are informed some 80,000 might be involved in making silage. With some 40,000 tyres each year allegedly going to silage that averages out at 500 tyres per farmer. Farmers can collect without license, apparently, and there is no monitoring of their collections as of yet. This is obviously something that needs to be controlled if tyre disposal is to be legitimised and any environmentally effective recycling is to take place. The Irish government cannot expect retailers to pay the licensed tyre trader 2 Euro per tyre when they can have their local farmer take them for 50 cents a time.
Far be it from T&A to accuse Ireland’s farmers of collusion in avoiding the law, but if those figures are correct, either the agricultural sector is dumping tyres in some hidden corner of a forgotten field, or the whole of Ireland is gradually going to be covered in tyres used for silage. Ultimately, the only thing green about the Emerald Isle would be on the mould and algae growing on their rotting surfaces.
Waste Tyres – The South African Solution?
Product NewsSouth Africa has an estimated stockpile of 800 million waste tyres; a considerable achievement for a country that produces only 12 million tyres per annum. Currently most of these tyres are either burned, or retreaded. The former releasing styrene and butadiene, both known human carcinogens, into the atmosphere along with thick black smoke and other chemicals. The South African government recognises that this is not a satisfactory response to the growing problem and is intending to make it mandatory that tyre manufacturers recycle their rubber products. The recycling initiative is estimated to be about to create some 800 jobs in recycling and collection. With only one recycling plant in the country there is a shortage of recycling facilities and the government is in discussions with various companies with a view to establishing further recycling plants. One of the key end products is the use of tyre rubber in asphalt. One of the problems for any investor in recycling in South Africa is the lower volumes experienced in the business compared to Europe or the USA. These lower volumes push up costs and make the already marginal operations less cost effective still. The government’s aim is to drive the tyre manufacturers to provide the recycling facilities, one way or another, and to ensure proper disposal of their products. The government will impose a one per cent tariff on the sale of every tyre, this will be used to fund the collection and disposal through The South African Tyre Recycling Process Company, a non-profit organisation that will collect waste tyres and deliver them to recycling points.
Tyre Recycling Plant For Brunei
Product NewsBrunei Economic Development Board (BEDB) and ACI Corporation Ltd. have announced plans to develop a multi-billion dollar tyre recycling plant in Brunei. It is estimated that 1.82 million US dollars will be invested in the plant that will generate some 1200 jobs locally. ACI Corporation Ltd has developed a process that transforms scrap tyres and other suitable rubber products into valuable raw materials using a worldwide patented and proven cryogenic process. Brunei has been chosen as its Asian location for the processing hub. Apart from Asia, ACI also plans to build processing hubs in the United States and Middle East to ultimately process up to 60 percent daily of the one million tyres currently discarded in each of these regions.
Tyre Disposal and Recycling
Product NewsThis is an eventful time for the tyre industry when it comes to tyre disposal. The landfill bans are creeping ever nearer, the End of Life Vehicle Directive looms and retreading – for so long one of the main avenues of disposal – is far from buoyant. Then there is the row over the definition of waste, which is exercising the minds of many would-be recyclers and, they say, hampering their efforts to deal with scrap tyres effectively. On top of all this, in the UK the Government has asked the tyre industry to think again about producer responsibility after rejecting their original ideas. An eventful time indeed.
