Grant supports tyre reprocessing on Tasmania

Tasmania’s shredded waste tyres no longer have to be shipped interstate and can now be processed on the island and turned into fuel following a major grant.

Tyrecycle has been awarded a $1.27 million grant from the Tasmanian government as part of the state’s waste and recovery push.

The grant will be used to upgrade Tyrecycle’s Barwick facility so that they can not only shred and process the tyres but also turn them into an alternative industrial fuel source.

The company is Australia’s largest tyre recycler.

Tasmanian Minister for Parks and Environment Nick Duigan says the facility upgrade will help cut the state’s carbon emissions and find a sustainable use for the 650,000 end-of-life tyres collected in Tasmania annually, without shipping waste interstate.

“Previously, end-of-life tyres collected from around Tasmania were pre-processed using the existing machine at Barwick’s and then manufactured into five-centimetre Tyre Derived Fuel chips using the new chipper,” Duigan says

“For the last decade or so in Tasmania, waste tyres have been collected and shredded in Tasmania by Barwick’s, but only to a large size, which then required more processing in Melbourne.

“Because of this grant, the upgraded facility at Bridgewater will create a value-added product that can be used as an alternative fuel for coal in a range of industrial processes, such as cement production.”

He adds that by using this alternative fuel instead of coal in industrial processes it could help reduce emissions by almost a third.

This Tasmanian grant comes on the back of Tyrecycle opening a new facility in Rockingham, south of Perth, Western Australia.

This new facility is capable of processing more than 40,000 tonnes of end-of-life tyres a year, focusing on off the road (OTR) mining tyres. It can also process 7000 tonnes of rubber crumb, which can be reused in road infrastructure projects.

Tyrecycle CEO Jim Fairweather says while the primary purpose of the WA site is to re-manufacture passenger and commercial tyres, this facility will also function as a secondary processing plant to the company’s Port Hedland operations which is focused entirely on OTR tyres.