Australian firm to build extra-large tyre recycling plant

Green Distillation Technologies will construct a large off-the-road (OTR) tyre recycling plant in Perth, in Western Australia, in 2018.

The venture is a collaboration between the Tytec Group and Green Distillation Technologies (GDT), as they plan to jointly undertake economic green recycling of large tyres, referred to as OTR or 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 as well as providing storage for the extra-large tyres.

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.”

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,” Mr Fennell said.