Every year millions of used car tyres are discarded in Australia and most are never properly disposed of but when a tyre recycling plant opens at Warren next year, that will begin to change.
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Green Distillation Technologies (GDT) hopes its Warren plant will be open in July next year and will break down more than half a million tyres a year into reusable carbon, steel and oil.
The facility will arrive at an important time. It was revealed earlier this week that an NSW tyre recycler, Carbon Polymer, had not disposed of a single tyre in the time it had been operating and had tens of thousands of tyres at its Smithfield site. Its permit only allowed it to have 5000.
GDT director Trevor Bayley said the revelation showed there was a need for more recyclers to step in and help with the growing problem.
"We are progressing well, heading towards the construction of a commercial module in Warren in July next year." Mr Bayley said.
"The plant would be able to process about 650,000 tyres a year, which is about 2 to 3 per cent of the tyres used each year.
"There is clearly a need for more facilities to handle the growing number of tyres that are being thrown away."
Warren is one of three plants being established by GDT, with others based in Victoria and Tasmania. Mr Bayley said the company was looking at building as many as seven plants across the next four years.
Warren was also the site of the test facility, which proved the distillation process could successfully be carried out. GDT said their technology was the only one that separated the elements of rubber, rather than just melting it into a different shape.
Carbon Polymer claimed they melted tyres down to make rubber crumb or coloured rubber for playgrounds and other surfaces but the operation never got off the ground.
The NSW government will hold a summit on November 27 with industry and recycling groups to try and come up with a solution for the growing number of end-of-life tyres, which are environmental and fire hazards. According to NSW Fire and Rescue, there were 256 tyre blazes over the past five years.
Victoria are also having problems and they are also in discussions with GDT to dispose of about nine million tyres at the site of the failed Motorway Tyres.
GDT chief executive Craig Dunn said the company would require five years and financial support if it was to clean- up the Motorways Tyres site.
