Plastic packaging tax may herald reprocessing boom

Norwegian waste tyre recycling company Wastefront has signed a deal with Gateway Resources for the supply of end-of-life-tyres for its £100m Port of Sunderland plant.

Wastefront secured planning permission in January 2022 to build the plant (pictured), which is expected to be commercially operational by 2024, when it will process 80,000 tyres a year, equivalent to 20% of the UK’s total.

Gateway Resources is to supply nearly 10 million tyres a year, which it said was similar to the volume of end-of-life tyres currently exported, and the plant would “play a crucial role in eliminating the UK’s waste tyres export altogether, by creating a local solution to a global problem”.

The company said it would also not use the normal method of burning tyres in cement kilns, which it called “one of the most polluting forms of manufacturing in the world”.

Instead, Wastefront will convert tyres into commodities, including biofuels and recovered carbon black, which can be used in processes such as alternative fuels or raw materials for the production of new tyres or other products. 

The firm said its recovered carbon black would result in an 80% reduction in total emissions through its replacement of virgin carbon black in tyre production. 

Chief executive Vianney Valès said: “We cannot continue with our dependency on new and scarce materials while continuing to burn existing materials with devastating and immediate environmental consequences. To solve the problem, Wastefront is proposing a solution that is both circular and at scale.”

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