Perth-based Tytec Group and Melbourne’s Green Distillation Technologies’ (GDT) recycling plant is set to open in June 2018. It will handle off the road (OTR) end of life tyres that range from 60cm to 160cm in size.
A spokesperson for the plant confirmed to Quarry it will also recycle tyres that typically come from 30-tonne to 80-tonne rigid and articulated dump trucks used in quarries.
Quarries will be able to pass on used tyres to the facility and Tytec Pty Ltd will also handle repairs and retreading of OTR tyres for re-use by smaller mines and quarries.
According to a media release for the company, GDT’s technology will recycle the extra large tyres into oil, carbon and steel using a “destructive distillation process”.
“It [the plant] will have a capacity of 5000 tonnes of OTR tyres per year, which will amount to over two million litres of oil, approximately 2000 tonnes of carbon and 1000 tonnes of steel,” the statement read.
GDT’s technology would reportedly allow a 3.5-tonne tyre to yield 1500 litres of oil and 1.5 tonnes of carbon.
Industry benefits
According to a National Environment Protection Council (NEPC) report dated April 2015, there is an estimated 155,000 tonnes of OTR end of life tyres generated in Australia per year. About 79 per cent of these are left on site as there has been no “economic and green method” to recycle them.
{{image2-a:r-w:200}}Commenting on the plant’s potential environmental and economic benefits, GDT CEO Trevor Bayley said, “Our process will turn a very large and difficult to handle environmental waste problem into high value commodities.”
Tytec Recycling chairman Brett Fennell echoed similar sentiments.
“The construction of this OTR tyre recycling facility is an important step for the Australian mining industry, as up to this stage the problem was being buried for the next generation to solve,” Fennell said.
“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 is an absolute world breakthrough.”
There is currently no other means of recycling whole OTR tyres and the typical method of disposal is burying on site or in an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nominated dumping area.
Tytec Recycling is part of Tytec Group, which holds an exclusive global technology licence for the destructive distillation process for OTR and agricultural tyres.
In 2015, GDT received a 2015 Edison Award in the resource management or renewable resources category for its proprietary destructive distillation technology.
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