The development of Australian world first technology to recycle end of life car and truck tyres has been a story in itself, but that is nothing compared with working out the logistics of how to handle those extra-large ‘off the road’ tyres (OTRs) used by heavy duty mining dump trucks, large agricultural tractors and road making equipment.
As an incentive, the recycling rewards are tantalising because using the Green Distillation Technology a tyre that weighs 3.5 tonnes will yield 1500 litres of oil, 1.5 tonnes of carbon, as well as the steel reinforcing which will go back to the tyre manufacturer for reuse.
The Hider 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 and there are no means of recycling them.
GDT has developed world-first Australian technology that will recycle end-of-life car and truck tyres into oil, carbon and steel using a destructive distillation process. They were Australia’s first ever nominee in the Edison Awards, the world’s top award for innovation last year where they won a bronze medal.
Green Distillation Technologies Chief Executive Craig Dunn said that their tyre recycling technology was proven, but the handling of the oversize tyres was not.
“These are tyres that are defined as having rim sizes ranging from 25 to 63 inches, with inches being the industry measurement standard rather than metric did present major problems.
“We have signed an agreement with Perth-based Tytec Logistics which provides logistics, storage and remanufacturing for OTR tyres as currently there are no means of recycling these very large tyres and the usual means of disposal is burial in a dump on the mine site, or in an EPA nominated dump. The longitude and latitude of the dump together with the serial number of each tyre is provided to the EPA.
“The test plant for the world’s first processing plant for OTR tyres is being built at the GDT complex in Warren, Western New South Wales, with the first OTR operating plant to be built in Perth in 2017.
“Our first concepts have entailed placing our processing chamber horizontal to the ground, rather than the vertical position used for recycling car and truck tyres and using a fork lift and tractor to feed the OTR tyres into the chamber and that approach appears to work quite well, but we need to make it more mechanised.
“We believe that after the first operating plant has been built in Perth, there will be a need for other OTR plants in Australia, as well as the United States and South America,” Craig Dunn said.
About Green Distillation Technologies: GDT is an Australian company which has developed world-first technology to recycle end‐of‐life car and truck tyres into carbon, oil and steel.
Released for Green Distillation Technologies by Dennis Rutzou Public Relations (www.drpr.com.au)
