WASTE MANAGEMENT IN ACTION – TYRE RECYCLING
Erskine expansion TYRECYCLE MOVES TO EXPAND ITS OPERATIONS IN SYDNEY WITH A NEW STATE-OF-THE-ART MANUFACTURING PLANT.
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ustralia’s leading Tyre recycler, Tyrecycle is gearing up for a purpose-built multi-million dollar rubber crumb manufacturing plant in Sydney, following significant growth in the uptake of its products produced from end-of-life tyres. Tyrecycle Chief Executive Officer Jim Fairweather says the move is to cater for strong demand over the past two years, with the company experiencing a 30 per cent growth in sales of rubber crumb. That product is currently manufactured at its Somerton processing facility in Melbourne – Australia’s largest crumbing plant. “With a ban on the export of whole baled tyres due to take effect from December next year and the resultant push by government to drive domestic consumption of tyre derived products via government procurement levers, we will see an even greater number of tyres remaining in Australia,” Fairweather says. “It’s vital we increase our capacity to recycle, reuse, convert and recover more of the country’s waste tyres.” The crumbing plant is proposed for the Erskine Business Park, approximately 42 kilometres west of Sydney’s CBD, and will see Tyrecycle’s existing local processing facility at St Mary’s transferred to the new site. The plant will enable rubber waste collected locally to be processed onsite into new higher quality tyre derived fuel streams and rubber crumb product
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used for roads. “It will eliminate the need to transfer almost 10,000 tonnes of shredded tyres annually from New South Wales to Victoria for further processing at our Melbourne facility. “Due to the increased demand and insufficient truck tyre feedstock, we will be using advanced fabric separation technology to allow the use of passenger tyres in the rubber crumbing process,” Fairweather says. “At Tyrecycle, we offer a major point of difference by proudly continuing to deliver and guaranteeing full chain of custody and transparency for all the materials we process and supply. “Our main driver is to reduce Australia’s environmental impact by increasing awareness of the importance of tyre recycling and providing solutions on how to reuse waste tyres
generated here to create value through other products.” The new plant will have the capability of processing 50,000 tonnes of end-of-life tyres annually into products used for road resurfacing, as well as sporting and playground surfaces and fuel. “We’re really excited about the potential growth in demand for products repurposed from end-oflife tyres, especially if supported by government procurement targets.” The industry is awaiting news on state government funding agreements as part of a newly launched Recycling Modernisation Fund that the Federal Government anticipates will generate $600 million in investment. The Federal Government has pledged $190 million towards new recycling infrastructure to divert more waste
Approximately 20 million end-of-life tyres are collected and recycled by Tyrecycle each year.
