Doing Fine

Much of the news concerning the recycling of scrap tires has been positive this decade, as numerous regional tire processing companies have established themselves as operators with successful business models.
At the same time, several end markets for scrap tires and materials extracted from them have emerged along with the establishment of this reliable collection and processing network. In most parts of the country, there is a processor willing to take in scrap tires and one or more end markets for the product made by that processor.
The situation is far from static, however. As in any other business segment, a slower economy has not been good for tire recyclers. However, interest in alternative energy has helped sustain long-term interest in the tire-derived fuel (TDF) market, even as many industrial boilers operate at a slower pace.
Another layer of interest is being shown by makers and users of powders and polymer compounds who are trying to overcome the technological and economic barriers to the widespread use of recycled-content engineered powders.
Florida Tire Recycling Inc. (FTR), Port St. Lucie, Fla., is among the companies striving to expand this market sector even in the midst of the current manufacturing slowdown.
FTR, founded in 1988, processes some 6 million scrap tires each year—equivalent to one-third of the scrap tires generated in the Sunshine State, according to the company. The company has traditionally turned many of these scrap tires into TDF and landscaping products, but a new subsidiary is designed to broaden FTR’s end market spectrum.

FENDING OFF CAPTIVITY
Tony Cialone, who joined FTR as its chief operating officer in July of 2008, says the company established the FTR Polymetrics division this September with the intention of operating differently than many of its competitors in the recycled-content engineered powder market segment.
According to Cialone, designers of technology and processing systems within the segment, as well as makers of engineered powder products, have often insisted on exclusivity, long-term contracts and licensing agreements to help recoup their research and development costs up front.
“Our vision is to be a collaborative open source,” says Cialone, “so we can go out and share with companies how to use fine powder in their processes and make it compatible with their compounds or formulas. We’re wide open and don’t want to come up with proprietary formulas and then say, ‘You can buy it from us only,’” he comments.
Cialone says a less captive arrangement can help consumers of recycled-content resins and engineered powders “to embrace the use of powder without having to worry about being tied up with one technology from one vendor.”
The FTR officer says he does not see the company’s approach as risky. “We think we’ll quickly be a leader with our approach to sharing technology. We’ll make money when our customers make money—that’s what we want to do,” states Cialone. “By collaborating, we can create more markets and larger markets.”
 

SHOW ME STATE SHOWING FEWER STOCKPILES

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has reported that the state has cleaned up more than 15.4 million scrap tires since its scrap tire cleanup efforts began in 1990. The state’s Scrap Tire Fee, a 50-cents-per-tire fee charged on every new tire purchased in Missouri, funds the department’s cleanups and provides grants, inspections and technical assistance efforts. The department has spent more than $17 million on tire cleanups and grants since the fee was created in 1990. “Missouri’s program is all about creating end markets for a material that would otherwise end up littering our landscape and contaminating our land and water,” says Mark N. Templeton, the DNR’s director. Since the program’s inception, the Missouri DNR has awarded nearly 300 grants with more than $1.5 million paid to grantees and more than 9,900 tons of tire material processed. To help increase the number of tires reported and cleaned up from smaller sites in Missouri, the department created the Tire Dump Roundup Program in 2006. Through that program, property owners can apply to have scrap tires cleaned up from their property at no cost. To be eligible, sites must contain between 500 and 10,000 tires. The Department partners with the Missouri Department of Corrections during these cleanups and converts the illegally dumped tires to tire-derived fuel (TDF). The DNR estimates there are a total of 613,000 tires remaining in illegal dumps around the state. Of this amount, more than 313,000 tires are in dump sites that have been identified. The DNR receives speculative reports of dump sites that equate to about 300,000 additional tires.

The initial product range of FTR Polymetrics will consist of what it calls ultra-fine recycled rubber powders in 80-mesh, 140-mesh and 200-mesh sizes.
Rubber powder in these sizes can be used as a substitute for petroleum-based materials in numerous manufacturing processes, according to FTR, and can help reduce waste disposal costs for manufacturers as well as reducing their carbon footprints.

WIDER VIEW
Cialone, who previously worked for other rubber recycling companies, says he likes the tie-in between the new FTR Polymetrics division and the collection and processing capabilities of FTR.
According to Cialone, FTR’s complex in Port St. Lucie has “everything under one roof,” which he describes as an “industry first” among recycled-content fine powder makers.
The horizontal scope of FTR from collector and processor through to fine powder manufacturer gives the company the chance to control its own feedstock, says Cialone, as well as to minimize its transportation and freight costs.
The economic viability of incorporating rubber powder into finished goods, according to FTR Polymetrics, has historically been tied to fluctuating oil and other commodity prices.
An important goal, says Cialone, is to develop ways to establish a price model that makes sense through different business cycles and commodity value cycles. “Breaking down that price hurdle—so that it works all the time, not at certain price points—that’s a key,” says Cialone. “These companies don’t want to face that on-again-off-again situation.”
Even with the slower economy in the United States, Cialone says he is encouraged that polymer pricing globally has remained strong. “You’re starting to see now an increased interest [in recycled-content engineered powders] because of the sustainability of the economics,” he remarks. “Even with lower demand, the cost is rising and there are new floors for polymer pricing. People are now looking at green materials as a buffer to price increases and are seeking predictable prices.” Cialone adds, “Rubber powder can offer stability compared to fluctuations of traditional polymers.”
Ideally, FTR and the engineered powders sector overall is closer to a status “that works economically whether oil is $100 per barrel or $40 per barrel,” according to Cialone.
“Couple our closed-loop program benefits with FTR Polymetrics’ competitive pricing, and customers get a high-quality, affordable and sustainable material solution—these products become the preferred, economically compelling alternative to virgin and petro-based materials,” states Cialone.

ADDITIONAL LAYERS
Should the ultra-fine powder sector grow in volume and importance, it will add one more layer to an end market atmosphere that has grown rapidly in its ability to absorb scrap tire materials.
“Scrap tire management in the U.S. is a huge environmental success story,” said Michael Blumenthal when, in the summer of 2009, he announced the year-in-review tire recycling statistics for 2007 (the most recent that have been compiled). “Markets for scrap tires are growing and old piles of scrap tires are shrinking.”
 Blumenthal, a vice president with the Rubber Manufacturers’ Association (RMA), Washington, D.C., has long been a key part of that organization’s efforts to turn scrap tires from an unwelcome landfill nuisance into a marketable secondary commodity.
Much like gathering the statistics to provide a national snapshot, Blumenthal notes that developing a viable tire recycling industry also has been a state-by-state effort. “The success of cleaning up scrap tires is due to state efforts to abate stockpiled tires, develop sustainable scrap tire markets and enforce existing scrap tire laws and regulations,” he says.
In terms of stockpiles, the RMA numbers indicate that those piles have been shrinking throughout this decade. “At the end of 2007, about 128 million scrap tires remained in stockpiles in the United States, a reduction of over 87 percent since 1990,” says the group. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Web site, “In 1994, the estimated number of scrap tires in stockpiles in the U.S. was 700 to 800 million.”
In 2007, TDF was the leading end market for scrap tires, with the RMA estimating that 54 percent of scrap tire materials by volume were used as coal alternatives at cement kilns, pulp and paper mills and industrial and utility boilers throughout the U.S. “Due to increasing fuel prices and improvements in the quality and reliable delivery of TDF, this market is anticipated to experience strong demand for the next two years,” the RMA states in a news release.
Ground or crumb rubber comprised some 17 percent of the market in 2007.Applications include playground and other sports surfacing, rubber-modified asphalt and use in manufactured products such as rubber mats and flooring.
Those seeking additional details on the RMA’s findings when it mined 2007 statistical data can download the RMA publication “Scrap Tire Markets in the U.S.: 9th Biennial Report,” at no charge at the RMA Web site at www.rma.org.
The bumps and bruises offered by the economy in the last several quarters have constricted some end markets for scrap tires, but ideally companies such as FTR are demonstrating that the next wave of entrepreneurial thought is already underway to help scrap tires in their evolution toward becoming an established secondary commodity.

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