Tires to be processed at new Australian plant

ERJ staff report (TP)

New South Wales (NSW), Australia − Every year millions of used car tires are discarded in Australia and most are never properly disposed of but when a tire recycling plant opens at Warren (NSW) next year, that will begin to change, reported The Daily Liberal.

Green Distillation Technologies (GDT) hopes its Warren plant will be open in July next year and will break down more than half a million tires a year into reusable carbon, steel and oil.

The facility will arrive at an important time. It was revealed earlier this week that an NSW tire recycler, Carbon Polymer, had not disposed of a single tire in the time it had been operating and had tens of thousands of tires at its Smithfield site. Its permit only allowed it to have 5,000.

GDT director Trevor Bayley said the revelation showed there was a need for more recyclers to step in and help with the growing problem.

"We are progressing well, heading towards the construction of a commercial module in Warren in July next year," Bayley said.

"The plant would be able to process about 650,000 tires a year, which is about 2 to 3 percent of the tires used each year.

"There is clearly a need for more facilities to handle the growing number of tires that are being thrown away."

Warren is one of three plants being established by GDT, with others based in Victoria and Tasmania. Bayley said the company was looking at building as many as seven plants across the next four years.

Warren was also the site of the test facility, which proved the distillation process could successfully be carried out. GDT said their technology was the only one that separated the elements of rubber, rather than just melting it into a different shape.

Carbon Polymer claimed they melted tires down to make rubber crumb or coloured rubber for playgrounds and other surfaces but the operation never got off the ground.

The NSW government will hold a summit on 27 November with industry and recycling groups to try and come up with a solution for the growing number of end-of-life tires, which are environmental and fire hazards. According to NSW Fire and Rescue, there were 256 tire blazes over the past five years.

Victoria are also having problems and they are also in discussions with GDT to dispose of about nine million tires at the site of the failed Motorway Tires.

GDT chief executive Craig Dunn said the company would require five years and financial support if it was to clean- up the Motorways Tires site.

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