Recycling Archives - Page 63 of 65 - Tyrepress

News and feature articles relating to recycling, including collection, of end of life tyres.

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Tyre Recycling Plant For Brunei

Brunei 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.

8th July 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

Tyre Disposal and Recycling

This 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.

16th May 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

U.K. Firm Buys Canadian Microwave Plant

Environmental Waste International Inc. has made its first sale of its reverse polymerisation tyre processing plant. It has sold its first plant to an un-named firm in the United Kingdom for an operation to be located there. The company has received a deposit of more than 1 million dollars against the purchase price of 10 million dollars. The plant should be commissioned within 18 months.Environmental Waste International’s system uses microwave energy to separate scrap tyres into carbon black, oil, steel and hydrocarbon gases. The plant can process 3,000 tyres per day. It reduces each 9kg tyre to about 3.5kg of carbon black and 1kg of steel. The plant can use the oil and hydrocarbon gases released to produce enough electricity to run the system. Excess electricity can be sold to the power grid.

16th January 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

Generation Power At Titan Technologies

Titan Technologies (Albuquerque/USA) has announced that its ability to generate electricity by using the gas and carbon black byproducts generated by its tyre recycling process has sparked considerable interest from tyre shredding operations across North America.Titan had been researching the use of its plants to generate electrical power. Titan addressing costs and developing scrubbers to eliminate emissions from combustion of the oil, gas and carbon black produced by the process. Once these costs have been determined, Titan will develop an electrical generation business pro forma for different locations. At this time, Titan believes that a TRTM plant is an economically viable electrical generation system. Ronald L. Wilder, Titan’s president, added, “All cities and countries have major waste tyre problems and most, if not all, will need additional electrical generation. There can be special benefits if additional power comes from recyclable waste tyres”.Titan’s current claim is that the BTU output of a Titan Technologies tyre recycling plant processing 100 tons of scrap tyres per day is almost 3 billion BTU/day in excess of the energy required to operate the recycling plant. This excess will generate approximately 20 mega watts of continuous electrical power.

15th January 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

Waste Tyres A Global Problem

Sarawak’s Natural Resources and Environment Board claims that there is no market for the recycled products from the scrap tyres and that retreading was not economically viable. Crumb rubber which can be used for many purposes has a market value of only 75 per cent of its production cost. Sarawak, has no system developed or legislation formulated to promote and regulate scrap tyre disposal and recycling issues. Malaysia produces about 14 million pieces of used tyres per year and the number is increasing at a rate of 10 to 15 percent.

14th January 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

Panther Fined £19,000 Plus Costs

Panther Tyres Limited, Aintree, admitted three offences covering thousands of waste tyres. And was fined a total of £19,000 and was also ordered to pay £1,125.45 costs to the Environment Agency. Panther Tyres Limited is owned by father and son Ronald and Stephen Callow, and neither have a Waste Management Licence authorising the deposit or storage of waste.The company said it ran a recycling operation for remoulded tyres. The company estimated that between 15,000 and 20,000 were stored on the land, and that about one third of them were unusable. Panther Tyres Limited admitted keeping waste tyres without a Waste Management Licence, permitting waste tyres to be deposited on land without a licence, and failing to take reasonable measures to prevent the escape of waste from the site.

10th January 2003/by Tyrepress Editors

Retreading: Top Of The Recycling Pile?

Retreading appears to generate a dichotomy for U.K Government’s environmental “sustainability programme”. On the one hand, retreading a tyre obviously makes better use of the original materials and extends the life of the new tyre, thus creating a lesser demand on fossil fuels and an ultimately finite supply of some raw materials. On the other hand, like any other consumer product, a retread will still end up needing recycling at some time in its life; some call this deferred disposal, but it seems that not all the environmental lobbyists have recognised the fact that recycling only ever delays the ultimate disposal; it can rarely, if ever, offer a final solution but still plays a vital role in resource management.In the UK we already have a very high percentage of recovery and re-use of tyres, including a significant contribution from retreading. Gary Oliver, Chairman of the RMA Marketing and Communication Committee, explains further why he believes retreads are industry’s leading sustainable option. “The retreaders’ case goes something like this. If the market uses 200,000 tonnes of new tyres per annum, then over five years there will be a demand for 1,000,000 tonnes of new tyres. If 50% of those tyres are retreaded every year, then the demand for new tyres falls to 600,000 tonnes over five years, whilst retreading accounts for the other 400,000 tonnes. The fundamentals to sustainable development are thereby catered for; that waste is minimised from 1,000,000 tonnes to just 600,000 tonnes and scarce natural resources are conserved. The maths are simplistic, of course, but if the primary objective of best environmental practice is to minimise use of raw materials, retreading does this whilst also meeting the second best objective of re-use. It is non-sensical that in its recent Producer Responsibility paper the DTI – with the Environment Agency in support – took retreading out of the reprocessing calculations for waste tyres ignoring a real and positive contribution to sustainable practice and effective waste management. By taking us out of the picture simply because we do not fit the way they wish to work and measure their environment performance indicators, we are effectively excluded from any of the economic considerations and unable to contribute towards waste recovery.”

28th November 2002/by Tyrepress Editors

NTDA Backs Tyre World Exhibition

The National Tyre Distributors Association has formally endorsed the new Tyre World event, scheduled for October 2003 in Earl’s Court, London. Buzz Carter, of organisers IDEX Media, said that London had been chosen after extensive research showed that it was the preference of domestic and international visitors. Tyre World will include a programme of seminars and associated events, including the NTDA’s annual conference Intyreactive and the national “Tyre Technician of the Year” competition. Further details are expected soon.

28th November 2002/by Tyrepress Editors

Israeli Company Develops Devulcanisation Technology

Levgum, of Israel, has developed a new rubber devulcanisation technology, allowing the rubber to be re-used. Exclusive rights to the western hemisphere have been purchased by Oklahoma-based Softstone Inc.; a company involved in rubber recycling. Softstone invested in the Levgum process after extensive testing by Akron Rubber Development Laboratory Inc. and holds 10 per cent of the company’s shares. Softstone has the right to sub-license the technology and is negotiating with “several major rubber product manufacturers”. Levgum has signed licensing agreements with two companies in India and talks are under way with companies in Australia, Brazil and the UK.

18th November 2002/by Tyrepress Editors

Fly Tipper Jailed

At Norwich Crown Court on Wednesday 23 October 2002, Mr Timothy Phillips was given a two-month jail sentence. His partner, Miss Ann Cummins, was given a three-year conditional discharge following a prosecution brought by the Environment Agency Anglian Region under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. The offences related to the keeping, treating and deposit of waste tyres without a Waste Management Licence at three sites in Suffolk and Norfolk by the defendants who operated as Sheriff Tyres, Sheriff Tyres Ltd and Tyre Management Recycling.Commenting on the case, Area Environment Manager Kevin Rutterford said: “Illegal tyre disposal and stockpiling poses a serious risk to the environment and also undermines legitimate businesses. Most used tyres are controlled waste and must be handled with due regard to the duty of care requirements specified in the Environment Protection Act 1990. If waste tyres are given to someone else the originator must be sure they are authorised to take them and can transport, recycle or dispose of them safely.”

28th October 2002/by Tyrepress Editors

Baroness Young Calls For Higher Waste Tax

Taxing waste disposal to pay for recycling and composting facilities, and an energy policy that will deliver 60% cuts in greenhouse gases should be at the top of the Government’s action list post Johannesburg according to Baroness Barbara Young, Chief Executive of the Environment. Speaking at Environment UK 2002, Barbara Young said government, its agencies and NGOs need to deploy all the tools at their disposal to create the massive shift in SME and public behaviour needed to overcome challenges such as the growing waste problem. Raising the landfill tax may have a short-term adverse affect on waste tyre disposal. A tax on waste though may well have a long term positive impact on recycling of waste tyres.

24th October 2002/by Tyrepress Editors

South African Waste Tyre Legislation Delay

South Africa produces 90,000 tonnes of waste tyres per year and currently only recycles 10 per cent. The country has one large tyre recycling company and some 10 smaller operations, with another 16 waiting to develop business when waste tyre legislation is developed. However, a white paper on waste expected in July has not yet been issued and the SA Tyre Recycling Process Company (a not-for-profit organisation hoping to establish itself as the governing body for the industry) reports that some landfill sites are already refusing to take tyres and others are charging up to 15 Rand (1,40 €) per tyre. The company suggests a collection fee, payable by the consumer, of 6 Rand (0,60 €), which will fund the recycling process collection and management. The subsidy is needed, say the company, because recycling operations need to receive the tyres at virtually no cost to be profitable.

3rd September 2002/by Tyrepress Editors

Good Year For GreenMan

US recycling giant, GreenMan Technologies has reported its sixth profitable quarter in a row. Net Sales for the second quarter ended 31 March 2002 totalled 5.561 million dollars, an increase of 21 per cent compared to the same quarter in 2001. The company processed the equivalent of 5.6 million passenger car tyres in the second quarter of 2002, an increase from 4.8 million in the same quarter of the previous year. Operating profits for the six months to the end of March 2002 have increased by over 100 per cent to 932,000 dollars.

8th May 2002/by Tyrepress Editors

US Tyre Fire Extinguished

The tyre fire in Roanoke, Virginia, which has been burning for 25 days, has finally been extinguished. The blaze began when a brush fire ignited an estimated four million tyres, the result of forty years’ collection of casings to supply a recycling/retreading venture that never got started. An official estimated that only 3,500 tyres remain and that the clean-up operation should last only weeks. This compares to the clean-up after Virginia’s worst-ever tyre fire, which is still on-going nearly two decades after the fire.

17th April 2002/by Tyrepress Editors

Big White And Square

The tyre recycling issue may be about to gain a boost from the heightened awareness of waste management raised in the UK, by the increased level of dumping of domestic fridges. Inaction by the UK on the issue has led to the imminent implementation of laws requiring the controlled dismantling, recycling and disposal of various elements of old fridges. However, the facilities to dispose of the waste do not exist in the UK – resulting in a fridge mountain growing at a rate of 6,500 units per day. Increased disposal costs – as much as £70 per fridge, have resulted in fly tipping of old units. This high visibility problem has led to questions being asked in the Commons and Environment Minister, Michael Meacher denying Government responsibility, blaming the European Commission. This heightened awareness of waste management might also attract attention to the tyre problem.

1st February 2002/by Tyrepress Editors