Life in the Fast Lane

Providing firm footing for the tire recycling market has been a process that, throughout the past two decades, has involved backward steps along with the forward ones.

There are some indications, as spelled out by an Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. (ISRI) Tire Recycling Summit presentation by David Forrester in late 2006, that a broader base of end markets has helped the forward steps outpace the backward ones in recent years.

In his presentation (which also appeared as a feature article, "Solid State," in the October 2006 edition of Recycling Today), Forrester pointed to seven categories of end markets—ranging from used whole tires to super-fine powder—that have helped provide confidence to scrap tire collectors and processors that they should have a greatly lowered risk of having to stockpile material.

"2006 really is the year that we as an industry have hit the trifecta," said Forrester at the time. "We have growth in all our markets, and in some cases spectacular growth."

Investments in tire recycling operations have continued apace, including some consolidation within the segment.

Forrester himself is an example of that consolidation. In 2006, he was CEO of TIRES Inc., a tire recycling company based in Winston-Salem, N.C., with three facilities.

Subsequently, TIRES has been purchased by Liberty Tire Services LLC, the Pittsburgh-based company that tops (for the second time in a row) our list of North America’s largest tire recyclers.

Forrester has remained in the tire recycling industry and with Liberty Tire Services, a company that processed some 50 million PTEs (20-pound-passenger-tire equivalents) in 2007.

The home page on the Liberty Tire Services Web site declares the company as "America’s leading tire recycler," and by the measure used for this list, the company can back up its claim.

The company has grown by opening new sites and through acquisition. It has also—like so many companies on the list—branched out into a variety of activities and end markets.

Liberty now claims a network of more than 12 processing locations and lists the following as its menu of products:

The company also provides tire pile cleanup and abatement services as well as scheduled tire collection services.

In the latter category, Liberty’s Web site notes the service is provided "to thousands of customers, including tire manufacturers, tire and auto dealers, fleet operators and government entities located in 16 states. Liberty’s National Tire Recycling division provides collection services to the balance of the 50 states throughout its network of affiliated service companies."

With its combination of collection services and stockpile cleanup, the growing company says it handles the equivalent of nearly 25 percent of the scrap tires generated in the United States each year.

The 20 Largest Tire Recyclers list, as it always has, features companies that are engaged in differing stages of the tire recycling chain.

A source of difficulty is that in most other recycling segments those at the start of the chain, starting with collection and including processing and brokerage, have adopted the label of recycler. The company operating the furnace or pulping mill at the end of the process is most commonly known as the consumer.

In the still developing tire recycling sector, both the terminology and the vertical involvement of companies may not be as delineated.

Regarding companies on this list, there is a mixture of companies in different parts of the recycling chain.

Since the rankings are based on the volume of tires handled, companies that collect scrap tires, or perhaps even clean up stockpiles, and then process them into TDF or another marketable product are the most common type of business included on the list.

Some of these companies engage in additional value-added steps in the process, including several that make crumb rubber and a few that create manufactured products.

More than 10 of the companies list TDF as one of their key products or end markets, while they mentioned crumb rubber nine times.

In several other cases, the manufactured products or other end markets listed require the eventual crumbing of the material.

While TDF has been a reliable and helpful end market, many recycling advocates contend that it is the growth of end markets for crumbs and powders that helps provide operating margins for tire recyclers.

Forrester, in his 2006 presentation, was pleased with the growth in demand in several markets across the processing spectrum. If anything, he was concerned about demand outpacing supply. "This [improved pricing] is all great news, of course, but it is scary that three of these markets (TDF, mulch and infill) are coming up substantially short of desired volumes."

In addition to a message of optimism over better pricing and the mixed blessing of increased demand, Forrester urged tire recyclers to continue to be ready for the backward steps as well as the forward ones. "We must stay active in market development and vigilant about market and landscape changes. As in all aspects of life, the most adaptable survive."

At Recycling Today, an adaptation being considered for the future of this list is to create two separate lists—one for processors who shred whole tires and another for manufacturing companies that use tire shreds or crumb rubber to make new products.

On the positive side, this approach may help to call attention to some of the manufacturers who did not make this list for volume reasons.

Among the challenges to consider, however, are whether to include several companies on both lists and whether TDF consumers, such as cement kiln operators, belong on a "consumers" list.

Readers interested in offering an opinion on how they would like to see this list presented in the future are urged to contact the author at btaylor@gie.net.

Additionally, readers who are aware of a company that should have appeared on this list or that is a candidate for the next list are also encouraged to contact the author.

While the editors strive to offer a complete list, it is certainly possible to have missed reaching out to some companies, or there may be others that have chosen not to respond previously but would like to reconsider.

In either case, please feel free to contact Recycling Today and help our publication provide a list that can paint a complete picture of a growing and healthy tire recycling industry.

The author is editor of Recycling Today and can be contacted at btaylor@gie.net.