Recovery Technologies Group Inc. (RTG), Guttenberg, N.J., has announced the expansion of its crumb rubber production at some locations and the scaling back of operations at other company sites.
The company has expanded collection activities in Canada and parts of the U.S. while closing a facility in Maine and restructuring its operations in Florida.
RTG, a leading tire recycler and producer of crumb rubber, says it is adding ambient crumb rubber production capacity at its facilities in Saskatchewan, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. It addition, the company announced new Canadian tire collection agreements in Prince Edward Island and Ontario as well as expansion of its warehouse network with new facilities in Columbiana, Ohio, and Houston, Texas.
Additionally, the company said it was closing its tire derived fuel plant in Elliott, Maine and was restructuring its tire collection activities in Florida. RTG said these moves would result in the loss of 22 jobs from of the company’s 550-member workforce.
In fiscal year 2004, RTG estimates it will collect approximately 40 million tires and will produce 250 million pounds of cryogenic and ambient crumb rubber that will be recycled into a wide variety of products including athletic stadium surfaces, road surfaces, flower beds, playgrounds and other products.
“To accommodate our rapid expansion, we are making important shifts in the allocation of resources to further strengthen operations that are contributing to our profitability,” says RTG CEO Marty Sergi. “We are also eliminating operations that are burdensome to our bottom line and are likely to remain so. We are pleased that demand continues to grow rapidly for products made from crumb rubber, particularly from our proprietary cryogenic process.”
Recovery Technologies Group Inc. operates 14 facilities and employs over 500 people, with a presence in all 50 states, Canada and Puerto Rico. In five years, the company has signed major national accounts for tire collection service fees and is selling high-margin recycled rubber-derived products. The company has contracts with companies such as Ford, Goodyear, Firestone and Wal-Mart, and estimates that it recycles approximately 13 percent of the 300 million tires scrapped annually in North America.