Off-the-road tyres, or OTRs, are a troublesome waste stream that, over the years, have been hard to reuse or recycle. One of the more robust users of these tyres is the mining industry, who usually bury them once they have reached their end of life. Tyrecycle CEO Jim Fairweather and his national team knew that something needed to be done, which led the company to build a tyre recycling facility in Port Hedland, WA.
Tyrecycle, part of the ResourceCo Group, started planning the facility just over five years ago and broke ground almost a year ago. Like a lot of projects, it was the planning – and getting planning permission – that took the most time getting the enterprise off the ground.
“The preparation is important; you’ve got to get all of that right,” said Fairweather. “Overall, in terms of sending people overseas to look at equipment, troubleshooting ideas, and then working through to getting board approval and presenting a sound business plan – it all takes time. Then there was engaging with mining customers, which was also a very important part of the process.”
Any successful processing facility is only as good as the people who run it, and the equipment installed. The Port Hedland piece of kit is no exception. And it has to be, because to say that the vast majority of mining tyres are huge is an understatement. Some come in at up to 4m in height and can weigh as much as 4-5 tonnes.
To start processing these tyres, you need a special piece of equipment. Enter the T-Rex. Like its long-extinct dinosaur counterpart, this piece of kit has a set of jaws designed to chomp these gigantic tyres into more manageable pieces. This OTR cutter comes from Italian machine specialist Salvadori Recycling and is the first piece of equipment of its kind in Australia.
Fairweather said the installation of the ‘T-Rex’ – and the facility itself – marks an important milestone for the company and Australia’s ability to create sustainable outcomes for Australia’s resource industry by recycling material from a waste stream that was previously buried in disused mines.
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Tyrecycle’s new facility, which is currently the only one of its type in the country, will have an initial 30,000-tonne per annum processing capacity, pre-processing the OTRs for further refinement at the company’s East Rockingham site in Perth. One key ingredient during commissioning was the speed at which the team managed to familiarise themselves with the new equipment.
“In terms of how to use the equipment, we’ve significantly reduced our cycle times of processing the OTRs,” Fairweather said. “With this being an Australian-first, we’ve never used the equipment before, so studying and operating and learning how to use it that quickly and safely has been wonderful for us.”
Once the material has been cut down to size, the pieces are transported down to the company’s East Rockingham recycling facility, where they are turned into tyre derived fuel (TDF) or crumb rubber. The crumb rubber is destined to be used in the roading industry.
Fairweather said it is satisfying to see such a potentially destructive environmental hazard reduced – in some cases – to a speck of black dust, 0.7millimetres in size, which can be reutilised in another industry.
Market failure
According to Tyre Stewardship Australia (TSA) figures, currently about one per cent of OTRs are recycled from the mining sector.
“There’s been a huge market failure when it comes to the collection of OTR mining tyres,” said Fairweather.
“Having said that, our mining customers have been waiting for a solution. They’ve certainly been working really closely with us to try and make it work.”
As mentioned, the current facility has the capability to process 30,000 tonnes a year, but what about the potential to process the current annual output of Pilbara OTRs, which is 50,000 tonnes a year? Not a problem, said Fairweather.
“The shed is big enough for us to put another one of these plants in,” he said. “This would bring our capacity up to 60,000 tonnes a year. We’re also looking at building other facilities in other mining centres like the Southern Goldfields in WA, the Curragh-Bowen Basin in Queensland, and the Hunter Valley in NSW.”
As well as making TDF and crumbed rubber, Fairweather said they are looking further afield when it comes to finding markets for the processed product.
“Some of the processing we do is domestic market dependent,” he said. “We also have a strategic alliance with a company in India who also take our processed material. They produce four times the amount of crumb rubber that we do, and one of the products they produce is micronised rubber particles (MRP). This can be used as a replacement for virgin rubber in the manufacturing of new tyres. We don’t have that in Australia yet. We are already sending a lot of material to them each month because they use our output as feedstock for their processing.”
As for processing the tyres in what is a relatively isolated part of not only the state but also the country, Fairweather said that was one of the most important aspects of the whole project.
“I cannot reiterate enough how important it is to have the facility near to the mine sites,” he said. “From a transport efficiency point of view – not just for us, but for the mining companies too – and from a cost perspective, and almost as importantly, from a carbon emissions perspective, we’re minimising a lot of issues.”
Overall, the process has left Fairweather and his team pleased with how it has come together.
“I think it’s gone incredibly smoothly,” he said. “We haven’t had any hiccups with the build at all. We also haven’t had any hiccups with the commissioning of the machines or the equipment.”
As mentioned, once the tyres have been cut, they are on a two-day truck drive to Tyrecycle’s processing plant in Perth, where they are further processed. As for the future, and making sure there will be enough feedstock, Fairweather said it is an ongoing process and one that he is confident will be fruitful for Tyrecycle.
“We’re in discussions with all the major mining companies in the Pilbara,” he said. “They’re all coming to the party. The fact that the plant and everything’s gone so smoothly means that we did our due diligence correctly – it was well planned, well executed – means we’re very happy.”