Revolutionary Waste Tire Recycling Process Comes To Idaho
"We are very excited to bring our technology here," said IRR Environmental Engineer and Project Manager George Holroyd, P.E. "Once people learn that there is finally an environmentally acceptable and economically viable response to the growing waste tire issue, we can begin meeting this challenge on a regional scale."
The six month long demonstration project is centered around IRR's innovative tire pyrolysis recycling method. The precisely controlled, safe and quality-driven process yields impressive quantities of reclaimed materials including oil, steel, carbon black, and combustible gases that can propel to the manufacturing cycle. The primary goal of the test period is to generate data to support regulatory approval from the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) in support of future operations at the site. IRR is currently in the process of gathering data and will present the "stack test" results to DEQ shortly.
Holroyd adds. "We are confident that the testing will come back favorable and we will be able to begin construction in 2005."
The waste tires issue is quickly becoming a big problem for Idaho, the United States and the world. New DEQ and EPA rules now encourage different disposal options other than placing them in landfills or burning them for energy. Currently waste tires make up nearly 5% of the waste stream worldwide. In 2002 nearly 310-million tires were produced in the United States. Every new tire that is produced eventually becomes a waste tire.
Idaho currently has over 2 million tires stacked in waste piles spread across the state. The rule of thumb is that we will see one waste tire per person every year. At that rate Idaho may be generating over one million waste tires per year. Tires by creation are built to be virtually indestructible and do not break down in a landfill often trapping volatile gasses which can be a fire danger. Waste tire piles have also become breeding grounds for the dreaded West Nile Virus that has made its way to the western part of the United States.
Tire pyrolysis is a tested and proven process conducted in a highly automated closed loop system that "does not produce dioxins, odor, contaminated water runoff, noise or harmful carcinogens," according to IRR Chief Technical Officer Roger Sramek. That's because pyrolysis, which is often incorrectly explained as "tire burning," is actually the molecular decomposition of tires by superheating them in the absence of oxygen. It is NOT the "burning of tires". The off gases are cleansed, combustable biogases that can be used for other beneficial purposes such as cogeneration of electricity and "Hot House" green houses
The demonstration project will use IRR's system, paving the way for full-scale operations using even more efficient commercial machinery that is able to recycle up to one-million tires annually.
"Our methodology is supported by 11 years of development and refinement work, and over four years of commercial operation in England," points out Sramek. "This is not about burning tires." IRR stresses that another very real opportunity for regulators, government officials, and the public is to support a viable way of combating the increasing problems of global warming, resource depletion and the high cost of obtaining new raw materials.
IRR's strategy to manage the waste tire challenge is framed in the greater context of the three R's of environmental stewardship: reducing, recycling, and reusing. Adopting tire pyrolysis process will reduce the number of tires relegated to Idaho landfills, dumped in non-compliant disposal sites, or stockpiled.
The IRR system will recycle the old tires into valuable raw materials that can be returned to the manufacturing process via the open market. Furthermore, by reusing the newly reclaimed materials in a variety of goods and processes, Idaho can avoid expending additional resources and impacting the environment through mining, drilling, or processing of new raw materials.
The quantity of materials recovered through IRR's pyrolysis process is remarkably sustainable, especially once a larger scale of operation can be established to yield bulk oil, gas, carbon black and steel. Currently, the majority of oil is obtained by drilling fragile ecosystems or via importing. The savings to the environment in terms of greenhouse gasses is enormous. It takes roughly 7 gallons of oil to produce one new tire. Each recycled tire will produce nearly one gallon of high grade oil, over 2.5 pounds of steel, and nearly 8 pounds of Carbon Black that can be used for many products that include rubber, inks, filtration agents, and plastics. The IRR Pyrolysis process is a self-sustaining operation and the markets will determine the value of the product that is produced.
IRR's modern pyrolysis technique enables an automobile tire to yield four pounds of reclaimed combustible gases that are scrubbed and used to power the pyrolysis facility or sold to natural gas customers. Carbon Black is now manufactured by injecting refined oil into a furnace and ignited by use of a natural gas flame. The soot created in the kiln is "virgin" carbon. The current process consumes a great deal of energy and requires a large amount of crude oil about seven gallons per tire. The more than seven pounds of carbon black reclaimed from each car tire via pyrolysis is suitable for use in filtration systems such as water purification, and to reinforce rubber goods and acts a s a pigment agent. Lastly, steel production has been chastised for its huge energy and environmental impact due to its intensive process of mining, refining, and manufacturing. Steel reclaimed through tire pyrolysis, nearly three pounds from a typical automobile tire, is high-grade ASTM 1080 quality material suitable for reintroduction to numerous manufacturing industries.
100% of the waste tire is cleanly converted into useful products.
One of the most vocal historical arguments against previous generations of tire pyrolysis technology has been the amount of air emissions produced as a by-product. In the tire pyrolysis process, emissions have been limited, since off-gases are thoroughly scrubbed and used as a heating fuel source for the operation. Scheduled testing, planned and conducted with the full involvement of Idaho DEQ representatives, will ensure the protection of air quality in the surrounding air shed during the demonstration period and as part of future ongoing operations. Other operational waste generated by the pyrolysis operation are projected to be very low, and IRR's published plans to handle all nominal quantities of these materials have already won the confidence of the DEQ project approval authorities.
"The Southern Idaho project site could not be more ideally suited to this type of operation," says IRR's Holroyd. The existing Idaho Waste Systems facility is adjacent to an existing rail spur and interstate highway infrastructure, safely located five miles away from areas any residence and in an area zoned and managed to avoid land-use conflicts. The current supply of some 500,000 tires already at the location is available for immediate reclamation efforts, which should please numerous watchdog groups and local stakeholders. Lastly, the partnership opportunity leasing space from IWS creates a cooperative groundwork for future success of this type of operation.
IRR does, however, project one key fact that is an unavoidable impact - local jobs. Construction of the multi-million dollar project facility will be managed and executed by local Idaho construction assets. Looking to the future operations of the site, ongoing facility management will require numerous high paying and highly stabile jobs for the area. Given the growing stream of tires entering the waste management market every year, IRR sees only a win win win situation ahead for a full-scale operation at the Elmore County site, both environmentally, economically and for the regulatory agencies that monitor the waste tire issue.
"The reduction in green house gasses resulting from the reuse of manufactured materials is enormous," said Holroyd. "Mankind will not survive unless we can better learn to reduce, recycle and reuse that what we have taken from mother earth."
Source: Integrated Resource Recovery, LLC (IRR)