tire recyclers who want to remain ahead of the competition must consider modernization.

Recycling end-of-life tires is old news in the U.S., and competition is tough. Therefore, tire recyclers who want to remain ahead of the competition must consider modernization.

Many tire recycling facilities in North America have been up and running for a long time—some close to 25 years. Because of globalization, customers today do not have the same requirements they did just 10 years ago. They are more selective when it comes to rubber and steel fraction quality. Even though the current tire recycling solutions are running as expected, optimizing production or upgrading the output can prove to be sound investments for the future.

Denmark-based Eldan Recycling has been a reliable supplier of tire recycling equipment in North America for more than 35 years and has seen a continued interest despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Contrary to many competitors, Eldan is known for its extensive experience, which gives the company the confidence to guarantee input capacity and an output fraction purity that meets industry standards, making the company popular amongst American tire recyclers.

Alexander Greb, area sales manager for North America at Eldan, says: “For many years, recyclers relied on having the best machines on the market. But many tire recyclers notice an increased pressure to either lower prices or to supply fraction qualities worth paying extra for. Eldan can assist in pin-pointing what can be changed or improved.”

He continues, ”We had a customer recently who had been running their system for many years already. He was very content with production and end product, but we convinced him to let us have a look to see if any improvements could be made. By adding smaller components and adjustments, the capacity of the system was increased by 5 to 10 percent, and he was able to earn back the investment in approximately one month. Larger upgrades will take a little longer, of course.”

One popular way to upgrade production is by increasing capacity, while upgrading the purity of the rubber and steel fractions also is common. The steel fraction from a standard tire recycling system still contains some rubber and textile; but, by adding a steel cleaning system, the rubber and textile content in the steel fraction can be reduced to 1 to 2 percent (98 to 99 percent clean steel wire). This is a very attractive material for steelworks, for example.

Other upgrades frequently done include adding an Eldan Multi Purpose Rasper to a primary shredding line. This enables the recycler to produce steel-free tire chips. Adding a quality upgrading system to a granulation plant will turn rubber granulate into “black gold,” which is approximately 99.99 percent free of impurities, or investing in a powder plant allows recyclers to produce 20-to-50-mesh rubber powder from granulate. Plant modules like the above ensure a robust business for keeping up with the constant innovations on the tire market and meeting customer demands.

Many options exist for end-of-life tires.

According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s (WBCSD) Tire Industry Project (TIP), the world is projected to generate approximately 1 billion end-of-life tires (ELTs) each year, demanding an increased focus on how to include ELTs in the circular economy to avoid illegal burning and filling up landfills all over the world.

Danish manufacturer of tire recycling equipment, Eldan Recycling, experienced continued interest in its solutions in 2020 from customers worldwide, despite COVID-19. Bjørn Laursen, product manager for tires at Eldan, suspects this development is the result of a combination of regulatory changes around the world and an increased focus on recycling as a profitable business.

Tires are a good example of how one type of waste can be recycled in many ways.

“Products from ELTs have many uses depending on the level of processing involved,” Laursen explains. “The traditional approach is downsizing and burning them for energy--known as tire-derived fuel (TDF).” Most research suggests that CO2 and NOx emissions are lower when burning TDF in facilities with proper air pollution controls when compared with traditional fossil fuels. As such, this is a relatively environmentally friendly and cheap alternative energy source in the cement and paper industries, for example.

Laursen continues: “If processed further and cleaned to industry standards, steel- and textile-free rubber chips, granules and powder have a wide variety of usages and sell for more than TDF.”

Tire chips can be used in landscaping and as infill for horse tracks, for example, and granules and powder are used for athletics tracks, playground mats and even shoe soles.

Apart from the rubber, almost a quarter of the tire’s weight is steel, which can be reused in the steel industry. “Cleaning the steel wire can be a profitable side business,” Laursen says. “Some customers report prices being up to four-times higher for cleaned steel wire compared to wire still containing rubber and textile.”

Ensuring output purity is one of Eldan’s main focuses and something that is not easy when recycling passenger car tires, in particular. These tires contain more textiles, which produce fluff and dust when the tire is downsized without the proper setup. This can contaminate the rubber granulate and the air surrounding the plant.

“It is easier to sell rubber from recycled tires with a guaranteed output purity because the quality of the end product is more consistent then,” Laursen says. “We predict this will be even more important in the future when more products join the circular economy.”

The market is constantly developing, and recent years have seen an increase in projects investigating the usage of recycled rubber.

One emerging market is pyrolysis of whole and downsized tires. The rubber itself is broken down into oil and gas for fuel, and the solid material remaining after pyrolysis (char) still poses huge innovation potential.

Other promising markets are crumb rubber added to building materials, such as road asphalt and concrete. Projects in Australia, Europe and the U.S. have shown promising results already with the potential to enhance building materials, and many other countries are looking into the possibilities too.

“We are aware that market trends are changing all the time” Laursen concedes, “but with a flexible tire recycling plant that can be adjusted to produce many different high-purity output sizes, it is effortless to change production to accommodate customer needs as they develop.”

The global tire recycling downstream products market is expected to reach $6.21 billion by 2027, according to Transparency Market Research, indicating a sound business in the years to come.

The knives on the Multi Purpose Rasper have been divided in a new 2+3 system.

Danish recycling equipment manufacturer Eldan Recycling has updated its Multi Purpose Rasper by splitting up the knives in a new 2+3 system, improving the machine’s performance by up to 10 percent. The innovation is a result of close collaboration with and feedback from customers using the Multi Purpose Rasper to process many different types of waste, and the new rotor and knife design has made a huge difference.

Jan Kjær, head of R&D at Eldan Recycling, says: “People working with the machines every day know what works and what can be improved from hands-on experience with their specific material. We just listen to their expertise and use that to make the machines even better than they are—it’s a win-win situation.”

The improved Multi Purpose Rasper saves customers up to 10 percent on power consumption compared with the old knives system, which can translate into a 10 percent increase in input capacity, depending on material type, screen size, etc.

At the same time, the 2+3 knife system enables a lower running temperature, which is always an advantage when running especially flammable material.

Kjær elaborates: “The traditional knives were made with five knife tips on each. We simply split that knife into two parts, with two and three tips respectively, and moved half the knives further down to even out the energy usage.”

The 2+3 knife system has been successfully tested in Multi Purpose Raspers processing very different waste types, such as end-of-life tires, cables, nonferrous scrap and waste refrigerators, with improved results across the board. It is now the standard knife system in all Eldan Multi Purpose Raspers.

The new rotor and 2+3 knife system can be installed in customers’ existing machines; but, as with all spare parts for Eldan machines, the knives and rotor for the old system also will be available to customers preferring that configuration.

President’s transportation, communications and power grid investment plan welcomed by metals industry associations.

The American Jobs Plan proposed by the administration of President Joe Biden involves funding road and rail transportation, power grid and telecommunications projects that would likely require hundreds of thousands of tons of steel, copper, aluminum and other basic materials.

As described in a fact sheet posted by the Biden administration in late March, the plan aims to “modernize 20,000 miles of highways, roads and main streets [and] fix the 10 most economically significant bridges in the country in need of reconstruction [and] will repair the worst 10,000 smaller bridges.”

Elsewhere in the document, a reference is made to “eliminat[ing] all lead pipes and service lines in our drinking water systems” and presumably replacing them with pipes made of other materials.

The fact sheet also says the plan “will put hundreds of thousands of people to work laying thousands of miles of [electrical] transmission lines and capping hundreds of thousands of orphan oil and gas wells and abandoned mines. And, it will bring affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband to every American, including the more than 35 percent of rural Americans who lack access to broadband at minimally acceptable speeds.”

The document puts a $621 billion price tag on the portions of the plan described as involving “transportation infrastructure and resilience.” In addition to highway and bridge projects, $80 billion of that amount is allocated to rail spending, including funding to “address Amtrak’s repair backlog; modernize the high traffic Northeast Corridor; improve existing corridors and connect new city pairs; and enhance grant and loan programs that support passenger and freight rail safety, efficiency, and electrification.”

For copper producers, the $174 billion portion assigned to electric vehicle (EV) industry support includes funding to “establish grant and incentive programs for state and local governments and the private sector to build a national network of 500,000 EV chargers by 2030.”

The Washington-based American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) quickly expressed support for the plan, with Kevin Dempsey, its president and CEO, stating, “AISI greatly appreciates President Biden’s commitment to building back better America’s roads, bridges, waterways, rail, electrical grid and other critical infrastructure – and doing it with American made steel.”

Adds Dempsey, “Each $1 billion in infrastructure spending requires about 50,000 net tons of steel, and each $1 trillion invested in infrastructure has the potential to create 11 million jobs in our economy over the next decade.”

The Washington-based Aluminum Association also endorsed the plan. Its president and CEO Tom Dobbins comments, “We are pleased to see the Biden administration and the Congress focusing on infrastructure investment as the national priority that it is. Aluminum is an essential element to America’s infrastructure future – used widely in the electric grid, solar panels, EV charging stations and buildings of all kinds.”

Dobbins also refers to recycling specifically, saying, “Major investment will also provide a once-in-a-generation opportunity to modernize the nation’s recycling infrastructure, vital to shoring up domestic aluminum supply chains and increasing manufacturing self-sufficiency.”

The full American Jobs Plan fact sheet can be found on this web page.

Steel producer in Diaco, Colombia, aims to consume 350,000 tons of ferrous scrap in 2021.

Brazil-based steelmaker Gerdau says it anticipates melting some 350,000 tons of ferrous scrap at its Gerdau Diaco facilities in Colombia. Gerdau is a joint venture (JV) partner with Dominican Republic-based Putney Capital Management in Gerdau Diaco.

In an interview published in late March on Portafolio.co, Gerdau Diaco Executive President Jefferson Marko says the steelmaking JV considers itself to be playing an important role in the circular economy aspirations of Colombia.

Marko also expresses optimism for the Colombian economy in 2021, telling Portafolio, “We see a resilient economy that wants to recover pre-pandemic production levels.”

If that is the case, Marko estimates Gerdau Diaco will melt “around 350,000 tons” of ferrous scrap to meet anticipated steel demand from the construction and infrastructure sectors. He also refers to Gerdau Diaco as the largest volume recycler in the nation.

The maker of steel rebar, wire and other forms of steel also operates seven scrap processing facilities, and according to its website offers vehicle and industrial dismantling services “nationwide.”

The website lists numerous ferrous scrap grades purchased by Gerdau Diaco. Marko tells the Bogotá, Colombia-based publication that obsolete grades comprise the largest portion of its ferrous feedstock, which he describes as “captured by trade recyclers.”

Gerdau Diaco has supported initiatives to organize the informal collector network in Colombia, according to Marko. “We currently have an agreement with the Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development with which, since 2019, we seek the formalization and strengthening of 16 associations of trade recyclers in Bogotá and Medellín,” he tells Portafolio. “This public-private synergy has allowed us to improve the quality of recovered ferrous scrap, which is an essential input for steel production.”

Adds the executive, “So far, more than 2,500 recyclers have benefited through technical training and the incorporation of good practices, which has allowed them to improve their processes in the scrap management chain and, at the same time, sell cleaner material at lower prices. more competitive.”

The full interview with Marko, in Spanish, can be found on this web page.