Tire Recycling Business Summit: Rolling Ahead

Attendees of The Tire Recycling Business Summit, hosted by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. (ISRI) in Rosemont, Ill., in September, heard good news concerning many of the end markets into which they sell their products.

In a presentation on the topic of end markets, Dennis Glenn of Energis LLC, Little Elm, Texas, portrayed the cement kiln market for tire-derived fuel as an active and growing one.

Glenn helps manage two kilns belonging to the multi-national cement maker Holcim, which operates 12 kilns in the United States, eight of which accept TDF. The two kilns Glenn helps manage are in Ada, Okla., and Midlothian, Texas.

According to Glenn, some kilns have been designed to accept whole tires as feedstock while others use shredded material. The Ada kiln can accept up to 20,000 tpy of whole tires while the Midlothian one can handle up to 18,000 tpy of shreds.

Glenn says shredding the tires can be the biggest source of frustration for TDF users or their suppliers. “Car tires are just not designed to be shredded,” he remarks.

But as a source of fuel, they provide good energy qualities at an affordable price. Glenn called TDF “the cheapest industrial fuel in the country.”

Another growing market has resulted in more scrap tires being shredded and colorized to become mulch or ground cover. Gary Giller of GroundScape Technologies, Brooklyn Heights, Ohio, is President and CEO of a company producing such materials, and he is optimistic that his industry is in the early stages of its innovation curve.

According to Giller, consumers are becoming aware of the long-lasting and environmentally-friendly qualities of tire-derived mulch and ground cover. Among the issues faced in this segment is procuring adequate supply to meet peak season demands among major retailers such as “big box” home supply stores.

In a separate presentation at the Summit, John Forrester, President and CEO of both of Global Tire Recycling Inc. of Wildwood, Fla., and TIRES Inc. of Winston-Salem, N.C., offered an optimistic assessment of several end markets.

Breaking consuming markets into seven segments, Forrester said markets ranging from whole used tires to super fine (minus-60) mesh crumb rubber are enjoying better demand and pricing.

“Tire-derived fuel is literally on fire,” said Forrester. “Demand is growing in direct correlation to the increases in energy costs, and if only 25 percent of the industries looking at getting into TDF use do so, we will see triple-digit growth in the next few years.”

Another market singled out by Forrester was mid-size crumb (minus-¼ and plus-20 mesh), which he described as “growing at better than 50 percent [annually] primarily because of the infill market, but also because of sustained growth in the industrial markets (mostly compression molding).”