Taylor touts Titan recycling venture

ERJ staff report (TB)

Quincy, Illinois — Titan International Inc. is going into the tire reclaiming business with a venture that Titan CEO Maurice Taylor Jr. claims can generate $250m (€183m) or more a year in revenue from the sale of reclaimed oil, carbon black and steel, reported Tire Business.

Titan's Titan Mining Services business has started Titan Tire Reclamation Corp. (TTRC), a partnership venture with Green Carbon LLC, which is part of Rome, Georgia-based OTR Wheel Engineering Ltd.

Green Carbon has developed a reclamation process that Titan claims is capable of handling mining tires and conveyor belting.

Mr. Taylor said the TTRC system can accommodate tires in sizes up to 59R63, and each of these size tires yields 450 to 500 gallons (1,703 to 1,892 litres) of oil, approximately 4,000 pounds (1,814 kgs) of carbon black and approximately one tonne of steel, all of which can be sold.

Fred Taylor, Maurice Taylor's brother, heads up OTR Wheel.

Mr. Taylor claims this business could generate earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and debt of $75m (€54.9m) to $100m (€73.2m) gross.

In addition, Titan and/or OTR Wheel can accrue carbon credits, depending on the country, allowing Titan to market its products as green carbon certified.

A key to the system is its portability, since the recycling needs to be brought to the mining company sites where the used tires accumulate. To this end, Titan plans to set up recycling units in Alberta and British Columbia initially, and then in Elko, Nevada; Gillette, Wyoming; and sites in Chile and Australia.

Titan Mining services plans to find an equity owner or owners for each operating facility, Mr. Taylor said.

Green Carbon/OTR Wheel President Fred Taylor describes Green Carbon's technology as distinct from pyrolysis in that it creates carbon black that can be incorporated into tire manufacturing.

The Green Carbon recycling process also creates a gas from scrap tires that generates 88 percent of the energy the process needs, Mr. Taylor said at the 2012 Rubber Recycling Symposium in Toronto. Including the carbon black and oil, the process creates eight times more energy than it consumes, he said.

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