The denial of the Queensland Government of a $5, grant application from Green Tyre Distillation has put the future of the plant in jeopardy according to COO, Trevor Bayley.
GTD Denied Funding
“We had applied for a $5 million grant to pay 50 per cent of the estimated construction cost and the decision not to contribute has meant that we have to either find the money from private investment, or re-evaluate the project and focus our attention elsewhere.
“It may be that the people of Toowoomba will step up to the plate and support the facility as we were putting up $5 million of the capital required.
“The tyre recycling plant was planned to be built at the Wellcamp Business Park.
“That plant would have employed 14 to 18 people full time, as well as local contractors during the construction phase and create further jobs in the transport maintenance and collection of end of life tyres from retailers and other outlets,” he said.
Trevor Bayley said that the oil they obtain from recycling end of life tyres would go to the newly built Northern Oil refinery at Gladstone, North Queensland where it is the vital raw material in the Queensland Government plans to create a renewable fuels hub.
“The oil is regarded by Northern Oil as ‘light crude’ that is low in sulphur and easy to refine into petrol, diesel or jet fuel and GDT has an agreement from them to take all the oil we produce anywhere in Australia and this also applies to oil from our plant in Warren, Western New South Wales.
“We have always seen our Toowoomba facility playing a key role in the plans to develop the area as a major road and rail transport hub as recycling the end of life truck tyres will be a vital component of this,” Trevor Bayley said.
“When completed the plant would process approximately 700,000 end of life tyres per year into 7.2 million litres of oil, 9,100 tonnes of carbon, and 3,800 tonnes of steel.
“Except for the capital to cover the construction costs we are all systems go as we have received a Queensland Government Environmental Licence and Development Approval from the Toowoomba Regional Council,” he said.
“GDT has plans to eventually establish 7 processing plants in Australia to handle the 25 million end of life car and truck tyres we discard each year and the potential for export of the technology is limitless and they are currently responding to enquiries to establish plants in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Middle East, Africa, Pakistan, Russia and New Zealand.
“However,” Trevor Bayley said, this depends on the investment support we receive in Australia to try and get those processing plants up and running, providing local employment and solving a major environmental problem.
