Alcoa Australia’s new recycling project, in partnership with Tyrecycle’s newly established East Rockingham facility, processes and repurposes old tyres for a range of applications.
The ‘off-the-road’ (OTR) haul truck tyres that have reached the end of their operational life are being sent from Alcoa’s bauxite mines in the Peel and South West regions to the local Tyrecycle facility. The tyres are processed at the facility to create a crumbed rubber product.
The resulting product can be used for a variety of applications, including crumbed rubber modified bitumen and soft-surface applications such as those used on athletics tracks and in playgrounds.
Alcoa Global Program Manager, Water and Waste, Nicole King, said the recycling project had been a long time in the making and was the culmination of significant collaboration between Alcoa and Tyrecycle.
“We wanted to be sure our end-of-life OTR tyres were being managed and generating products that support our waste management objectives,” Ms King said.
“We have set the global goal of a 25 per cent reduction in landfilled waste by 2030 from a 2015 baseline. OTR tyres are a significant material stream for our Western Australian mining operations, and recycling end-of-life tyres will contribute towards achieving our goal.
“In addition, Tyrecycle’s location and solution help us work towards Alcoa’s global ambition to achieve carbon net zero by 2050.
“Being located in the region where we operate, the new recycling facility also meets our focus on supporting local business and jobs.”
According to Tyrecycle, 130,000t of OTR tyres reach their end of life in Australia each year, and less than ten per cent of these are being recycled, posing a considerable environmental challenge. The company said every tonne of crumb rubber used in asphalt mixes represents a significant greenhouse gas saving.
Tyrecycle CEO, Jim Fairweather, said the East Rockingham facility was Australia’s largest and most flexible tyre recycling facility, catering for OTR tyres as well as commercial and passenger tyres.
“Our partnership with Alcoa marks our first contracted agreement with a South West mining operator to recycle OTR tyres,” Mr Fairweather said.
“Tyrecycle’s goal is to deliver sustainable outcomes for our clients, where waste is a resource, not a problem, and we are proud to have established this state-of-the-art facility in the Rockingham region with strong support from government and industry.”
Ms King said that Alcoa was investigating recycling solutions for other rubber products, including end-of-life conveyor belts, as well as looking at opportunities to use the crumbed rubber product at Alcoa facilities.
“We are considering opportunities to use some of the rubber crumbs from Tyrecycle in roadworks around our operations,” Ms King said.
“Doing so would represent a great outcome with our tyres being recycled into rubber crumb and repurposed within our operations.”
Image: Tyrecycle’s CEO, Jim Fairweather, with Alcoa’s Nicole King with the first OTR tyre from Alcoa to be recycled at the facility in Rockingham.
