Liberty Tire announces $1.4M equipment upgrade at North Carolina facility

Pittsburgh-based Liberty Tire Recycling has announced a $1.4 million equipment upgrade at its facility in Cameron, North Carolina. The company says the state’s commitment to sustainably fund its scrap tire program made this investment possible.

The new equipment will increase the amount of material the facility can process, creating an additional 3,300 tons of recycled product, the equivalent of nearly 300,000 passenger tires.

The new equipment has benefits beyond additional capacity, as it will also increase the number of truck tires the facility will be able to process.

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Liberty Tire says recycled rubber from truck tires is in high demand, but because of their size and stronger steel wire, they’re more difficult to process than a standard passenger tire. The rubber from these tires will be turned into crumb rubber and used primarily to supply floor mat manufacturers who use 100 percent recycled rubber for the bottoms of floor mats and rubber tiles. Crumb rubber also is used in walking trails and running tracks, synthetic turf fields, rubberized asphalt and molded goods.

This investment comes in response to North Carolina’s passage of Senate Bill 706, which reinvested tire disposal fees into North Carolina’s scrap tire system. Additional funding under the new law will reimburse counties for costs related to collecting and recycling scrap tires.

Liberty says it is considering additional multimillion-dollar investments and job creation at its other facilities in North Carolina as the state has emerged as a hub for the tire recycling industry.