In current day and time, car is an indispensable transportation tool in everyone’s day to day life. Each year, more than 40 million tyres in Australia reach the end of their working lives. As such, the volume of waste tyres had become a concern to the society as only a quarter of these waste tyres are recycled whereas most will end up into landfill. This not only takes up a lot of space, tyres are also know to leach harmful chemicals into the environment; cause fires; and provide a perfect breeding ground for pests like mosquitoes and rats.
Australia Advanced Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) has published a new technology on recycling waste tyres in 2011. Since then, this new technology had significantly helped to reduce the number of used tyres being sent to landfill or illegally dumped, and avoids long term land contamination due to the disposal of tyres in landfill, as well as fire risks caused by stockpiled tyres. As you know, once a tyre pile catches fire, it is very hard to extinguish, and may continue to burn for days with black fumes visible for many miles.
This new technology was jointly developed by Melbourne company VR TEK, Deakin University and CSIRO. It is well recognized by the Federal Government, and was cited as one of the example of how innovation was helping to build a sustainable future for Australian companies and jobs for Australian workers.
In the past, shredded tyres could not easily be recycled due to its metal content. But with this new technology, the new patented process is able to turn used tyres to high quality rubber powders free of metal contamination, for redevelopment as new products, by using highly efficient mechanical segmenting method. The rubber crumb produced by this new process is even cheaper than virgin rubber.
A number of Australian companies have already started using this new technology to recycle waste tyres. They collect tyres from different sources and then process into range of rubber granules, chips, crumbs, or fine powders, which are then used for a variety of innovative applications, such as athletic tracks, children’s playgrounds, brake pads, new tyres, and many more.
So what exactly are the processes? Following are the simple 5 steps:
– Tyre recycling companies collect the end-of-life from various locations, and transport them to their designated facility for processing.
– Tyres are sorted by size and composition for further processing. Tyres suitable for recycling are being separated and brought to production line directly.
– Tyres are shredded in preparation for further processing, and then further reduced in size by a granulator.
– The steel at the centre of each tyre is being removed and reused. Some factories can recycle over 3,000 metric tonnes of steel as a result of this process. The steel free tyre granules are then stored separately.
– The tyre granules will be grinded into finished product depending on the particle size required. For example, buffings and shred (which can be used in matting, sport surfaces and turf), granules and chips (which can be used in horse arenas and asphalt), crumbs and powders (which can be used in road sealing, adhesives and paints), large shred tyre chips (which can be used in civil engineering and fuels).
By improving our knowledge and technology, understand how valuable resources are recovered and returned back into the circular economy and making changing to our purchasing decisions, we can all contribute to a more positive environmental future. :)
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