BIBRA Lake-based Reclaim Industries Ltd has been awarded a $567,500 grant to establish a tyre recycling and re-processing facility in Adelaide, which it says will be the first of its kind in South Australia. The SA move follows a push by the Western Australian government to phase out the dumping of tyres into landfill, which is likely to boost demand for Reclaim’s services. The company is currently pursuing improvements to its Bibra Lake plant, which processes the equivalent of 66,000 car tyres per month. The WA government is aiming for a total ban on dumping of tyres in landfill in the Perth metropolitan area and larger regional centres by 2011. The SA grant is from the Innovation and Investment Fund for South Australia, which is jointly funded by the federal and SA governments. Reclaim will invest the funds in a new plant that will recycle and granulate commercial truck tyres to produce a range of new products, including railway sleepers. At full capacity, the new facility will recycle approximately 6,000 tyres per month and employ up to 30 people. Total expenditure for the new facility is estimated at $1.135 million, with Reclaim intending to match the grant funding. Reclaim said SA produces around 1.4 million waste tyres every year and estimates that 15 per cent of these are truck tyres. The SA government has estimated that about 90 per cent of those tyres are disposed of as landfill, with about 7 per cent transferred interstate for recycling and the balance is either illegally dumped or stockpiled. In WA about two million tyres are disposed of each year, contributing 25,000 tonnes to landfill. Reclaim listed on the ASX in February 2002 and is the result of a merger between three rubber recycling and products companies: Entyre Rubber Systems, Playsafe Australia and Leisuresafe Holdings.
