End-of-life tyre (ELT) recycler Pyrum Innovations and UK’s Suez recycling and recovery firm have entered into a one-year exclusivity agreement to build Pyrum’s first pyrolysis plant in the UK.
Under the terms of the agreement, the utility, which is active in water and waste management, will determine the site for the first plant over the next 12 months and, with support from Pyrum, will begin the permitting process. Suez bears the costs for the approval process. The planned plant is to be equipped with three pyrolysis reactors and thus have a recycling capacity of around 20,000 tonnes/year of old tyres. After successful approval, the first plant is to be built.
Through the partnership with Suez, Pyrum Innovations adds it is expanding its extensive and promising pipeline for the construction of pyrolysis plants in Europe.
Most recently, the company had signed letters of intent with several companies for joint projects. In addition, Pyrum is currently in the final phase of expanding the main plant in Dillingen /Saar and is planning another plant of its own in Homburg, for which a suitable plot of land was recently secured.
With the move to the UK, Pyrum and Suez are opening up the promising British recycling market for scrap tyres. Around 50 million tyres are discarded in the UK, of which 13.4 million tyres are currently used as alternative fuel.
Meanwhile in other news, Pyrum and bicycle tyre manufacturer Ralf Bohle ( Brand: Schwalbe) have developed the world’s first bicycle tyre made from recycled tyres. Pyrum’s Green Marathon uses 100% recycled carbon black (rCB), which is a direct product of the recycling process and replaces fossil carbon black.
The production of the bicycle tyre saves more than a third of CO2eQ compared to the previous model. To determine the CO2 savings, a detailed Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) of both models was calculated and evaluated according to the current IPCC AR6 standard (GWP 100, excl. biogenic CO2).
Pascal Klein, CEO of Pyrum Innovations AG: “The Green Marathon is an impressive example of how Pyrum and its partners can close the material cycle. We are proud that our recycled material forms the basis for the world’s first bicycle tyre made from used tyres. This development is further proof of our commitment to sustainability and the circular economy. Together with Schwalbe, we will continue to work to create environmentally friendly solutions for the tire industry and to continuously expand recycling options.”
A new standard in terms of environmental friendliness: The “Green Marathon” is the first product to emerge from the Schwalbe Recycling System.
This is a joint project by Pyrum, Ralf Bohle GmbH and the Cologne University of Applied Sciences, which enables the world’s first and, to date, only integrated process for recycling used bicycle tyres.
Overall, the “Green Marathon” consists of 70% recycled and renewable materials, uses only fair-trade natural rubber and thus closes the material cycle.
For this product innovation, the “Green Marathon” received the Eurobike Award at the Eurobike trade fair in Frankfurt and – as the only product – also the Green Award, which is given for product innovations in the field of sustainability.