07. November 2008

MeWa delivers complete recycling plant for used tyres to Kasakhstan

For the first time, the MeWa Recycling Maschinen und Anlagenbau GmbH Company from Gechingen will deliver a complete used tyre recycling plant to Kasakhstan.

Using the plant technology from Gechingen, the Kazakhstan Rubber Recycling Co. is going to process used truck and car tyres into a rubber granulate. “Our assignment is it to separate the valuable materials rubber, steel and textiles from the used tyres and readmit them into the renewable raw material cycle”, MeWa CEO Ulrich Hink explains the target of tyre recycling.

For this purpose, the Gechingen Company has been designing state-of-the-art recycling plants for customers around the globe. The four-million-order from Kasakhstan comprises a preliminary disintegration device with consecutive granulating line. Core parts are the disintegration machines which are combined and complemented by an elaborate separating and conveying technology by the engineers.

Depending upon customer’s specifications, palm-sized tyre pieces for thermal processing emerge in the end, especially granulates, though, in varying sizes all the way down to fine rubber powder (Actimewa) for an immediate reuse in industrial rubber processing.

At their site in the State Capital of Astana in Kasakhstan, the customer will be recycling about an annual 11,000 tons of worn tyres and produce a rubber granulate of a grain size of smaller than 4 millimetres. This product will be completely “free of steel and textile corduroy and ready for secondary processing into numerous products”, Ulrich Hink explains the options.

In Kasakhstan, the major fraction of the materials gained from used tyres will be used in road construction. The extreme temperature fluctuations of icy cold winters to hot summer months in the Eurasian country again and again result in great damage to the road surfaces. For the purpose of temperature equalization, the granulate from the recycling process can be added directly into the top layer of the bitumen. The production of compression moulded parts is projected for the future.