The construction of Green Tyre Distillation’s first extra-large tyre recycling plant will start soon with the preparation of conceptual drawings due to be completed shortly, to be closely followed by the commissioning of final drawings and the commencement of construction of the recycling processing plant in Perth, Western Australia expected by the February 2018.
The venture is a collaboration between the Tytec Group and Green Distillation Technologies, a global award-winning tyre recycling technology company. They have jointly established Perth based Tytec Recycling Pty Ltd to undertake economic green recycling of off the road tyres which are classified as those with rim sizes ranging from 25 to 63 inches.
GDT has developed Australian technology that will recycle end-of-life tyres into oil, carbon and steel using their ‘destructive distillation’ process. Transport of tyres from mine sites to the recycling plant will be undertaken by Tytec Logistics which has over 75 per cent of the national OTR logistics market as well as providing storage for the extra-large tyres.
Currently there is no conventional means of recycling OTR tyres and the usual method of disposal in Australia is to bury them in a dumping area on mine sites, or in an EPA nominated dumping area. The GPS coordinates of the dump together with the serial number of each tyre disposed of in this way must be provided to the EPA.
The recycling benefits by this method are considerable as by using the GDT technology a tyre that weighs 3.5 tonnes will yield 1,500 litres of oil, 1.5 tonnes of carbon, as well as the steel reinforcing which can go back to the tyre manufacturer for reuse.
The Hyder Report in 2013-14 estimated that there are 155,000 tonnes of OTR end-of-life tyres of various sizes generated in Australia each year of which 79.4 per cent are left on site as currently there is no economic and green method of recycling them.
The recycling of OTR tyres in Australia is the ‘tip of iceberg’ according to GDT’s Chief Operating Officer Trevor Bayley, who attended MinExpo, the world’s biggest mining expo in Las Vegas last year.
“The Australian recycling potential for OTR tyres is a fraction of the world market as during MinExpo we received enquiries from mining companies in Mexico, Columbia, Brazil, Canada, the United States and Chile and the market in these countries, which all have large mining industries, is immense as they also have no current economic green means of recycling their used OTR tyres.”
“As an example of the scale of mining companies in these countries and to demonstrate the potential market for the technology, one individual South American mine operator we met has more dump trucks than all those operating in Western Australia today.
“The move to build the world’s first processing plant for OTR tyres comes after more than twelve months of logistical research and development work undertaken at the designated Tytec Recycling R&D plant, which is a section of the GDT facility in Warren, New South Wales. This work has been to find a solution to the problem of how to handle a four-tonne tyre with a diameter of 4 metres or more through a complex process at sufficient volume to make it economically viable,” Trevor Bayley said.
GDT has developed a proven Australian technology that will recycle end-of-life car and truck tyres into oil, carbon and steel using their ‘destructive distillation’ process. They were Australia’s first ever nominee in the Edison Awards, the world’s top award for innovation in 2015 where they won a bronze medal.
Tytec Recycling Chairman Brett Fennell said that the OTR tyre recycling solution adds the final piece to the puzzle and will enable the mining and industrial sectors to be able to complete a cradle to grave solution for OTR tyres by utilising a green economic disposal method.
“For fifteen years we have been offering a complete OTR tyre service to the mining industry including logistics, storage, re-treading and repairs and now we have the technology and method to offer an economically viable recycling solution as part of our total range of services.
“The environmental benefit of recycling very large and hard to handle tyres that have finished their useful life into high grade reusable commodities such as oil, carbon and steel, rather than just burying the problem for future generations to try and solve is enormous.”
“As well as the Australian market for recycling OTR tyres, we believe that we can play a key role in helping to introduce this unique locally developed technology to the world,” Brett Fennell said.
