On 28 February, Wastefront held a groundbreaking ceremony for its £100 million tyre-to-fuel facility at the Port of Sunderland. The project initially focuses on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production. On that note, in January, British Airways-owner International Airways Group, invested in Wastefront became the first European airline group to aim for 10 per cent SAF usage by 2030.
Under a new partnership agreement, energy infrastructure company VTTI and pyrolysis tyre recycling specialist Pyrum Innovations plan to establish a thermolysis tyre recycling plant at VTTI’s Antwerp Terminal. The VTTI-owned facility will have a processing capacity of up to 45,000 tonnes of end-of-life tyres in the first project phase and double this in the second. Going forward, VTTI aims to develop similar plants at its sites across the globe.
Anyone who likes an acronym will love the Sustainable Materials for Innovative, Low Emissions applications in the CIrcular ciTY project. The European Tyre Recycling Association (ETRA), coordinator of the European Commission-based venture, jauntily calls it SMILE CITY.
The Port of Ostend has confirmed that recycling firm Tyros BV is establishing a facility for processing end-of-life tyres on a two-hectare site within the port area. Supported by Belgium’s Flanders regional government, which has granted one million euros in strategic ecological support, Tyros is investing in an electric pyrolysis reactor with an annual capacity to convert 9,125 tonnes of rubber granulate from discarded tyres into raw materials such as carbon black, pyrolysis oil, and syngas.
A groundbreaking collaboration between Bridgestone and three other organisations aims to develop advanced recycling technologies for the secondary processing of recovered carbon black extracted from end-of-life tyres and other rubber polymer products. The aim is to convert this into a material with rubber reinforcement properties equivalent to those of virgin carbon black.
With the installation of a new milling line at its Hawkesbury site in Canada, Ecolomondo Corporation will have the capacity to mill an additional tonne or so (2,200 lbs) of recovered carbon black (rCB) hourly. This milling line replaces a previously installed line which failed to achieve the promised output of 725 kg (1,600 lbs) per hour of rCB and additionally didn’t yield the particle size of 10-15 microns required by many Ecolomondo rCB off-takers.
The Scottish Government has granted planning approval for a new tyre recycling facility in Linwood, Renfrewshire, to address the growing challenge of waste tyres across the country. The facility, operated by Renfrewshire-based SSH Recycling, is reportedly the first of its kind in the UK and is designed to “recycle or repurpose every component part of waste tyres”.
Researchers at the University of Delaware have developed a promising method to remove toxic particles from end-of-life tyres. A team from the University’s Center for Plastics Innovation and Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering has devised a chemical extraction process to isolate 6PPD from used tyres. The results of this research appear in the publication Nature Chemical Engineering.
Polish waste tyre recycler Recykl Group says it increased the scale of its operations in the nine months to 30 September 2024, and during the final month of this period concluded due diligence processes regarding potential acquisitions in Germany and Lithuania. The company is currently analysing the results to prepare for possible transaction agreements, with Recykl’s Management Board anticipating reaching a decision by the end of the year.
When DME Tyres’ Bill Clarke, the Tyre Recovery Association’s president, addressed the impressively large number of delegates from across the tyre sector at the 2024 Briefing Day (Tuesday 24 September, Leamington Spa), he was in no mood to mince his words. “I don’t think the UK recycling industry can survive in its current form…with one hand tied behind its back,” he said, summing up many years of frustration for the TRA and its members. With a new government slowly – too slowly, perhaps – setting out its legislative agenda, his dramatic rhetorical tone was understandable. With several issues coming to a head, led by an end-of-life tyre (ELT) export situation that is, in every sense, unsustainable, and evolving UK legislation governing waste carriers, brokers and dealers (CBD), the association and its forum speakers demonstrated an increased urgency about the tyre recovery situation.
Scandinavian Enviro Systems (Enviro) has announced a significant achievement in its joint venture project with the receipt of SEK 25.6 million (£1.9 million) as compensation for meeting a predefined milestone linked to the construction of its recycling plant in Uddevalla, Sweden. This compensation, which comprises equal parts cash and shares in the joint venture company, marks the first of several planned disbursements tied to the project’s progress. Enviro has also published its financial results for H1 2024.
Canadian clean technology company Ecolomondo Corporation is looking to expand and to further develop its Thermal Decomposition Process (TDP) technology, particularly within the tyre recycling sector, after raising funds through a combination of private placement and loan.
During a parliamentary inquiry into government agency procurement practices, Tyre Stewardship Australia (TSA) emphasised that procurement policy and a robust approach to product stewardship are “the keys” to creating hundreds of local jobs in the waste tyre sector. Australia currently generates half a million tonnes of waste tyres, equivalent to 62.5 million passenger car tyres, every year.
Tuesday 24 September sees the largest gathering of the UK tyre recycling. Over 50 businesses are expected to be represented to hear from the leading industry experts and analysts at a time when the new government needs to focus on some crucial decisions to enable the industry to succeed. Indeed, such is the importance of the current season in the tyre recycling sector, “Without an update to the regulatory framework many fear the imminent demise of the UK’S domestic tyre recycling industry.”
Danish firm Genan, the world’s largest mechanical tyre recycling group, achieved a turnover of €58.7 million in 2023. This represents a seven per cent decrease compared to the previous year. However, despite the lower turnover, the company increased its EBITDA by over 50 per cent to almost €9.4 million, while operating profit (EBIT) multiplied from just over €750,000 to €3.2 million. Net profit, influenced negatively by exchange rate fluctuations, increased from €1.5 to €2 million.
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