Tyre recycler Green Distillation Technologies (GDT), which has developed world-first technology that transforms old tyres into oil, carbon and steel, has received environmental approval for their Warren, NSW plant and building development approval for their proposed Toowoomba plant.
GDT’s Chief Operating Officer Trevor Bayley (pictured) said that the NSW Environment Licence was issued under a new regulation that recognised the uniqueness of their process, while the Toowoomba Development Approval came from the Toowoomba Regional Council and included all the other Government approvals needed to move ahead and build the plant.
“After that, the final hurdle we face is the Queensland Government resource recovery grant that we have applied for to help us fund the $10 million construction bill and when that comes through we could start preparatory work on the site within two months of the announcement,” said Mr Bayley.
“That plant will employ 14 to 18 people full time, as well as local contractors during the construction phase and create further jobs in the transport associated with collection of old tyres from retailers and other outlets.”
The oil GDT obtains from recycling old tyres will go to the newly built Northern Oil refinery at Gladstone, North Queensland where it is the vital raw material in the Queensland Government plans to create an environmental fuels hub.
“The oil is regarded by Northern Oil as ‘light crude’ that is low in sulphur and easy to refine into petrol, diesel or jet fuel and GDT has a firm contract from them to take all the oil we produce anywhere in Australia and this also applies to oil from our plant in Warren, Western New South Wales,” said Mr Bayley.
“With our Warren facility we have applied to the local council for a permit to expand the tonnage of tyres we can process at the site to 25,000 tonnes and we are confident that the request will be granted soon as we have enjoyed an excellent co-operative relationship with the Warren Shire Council since we established our first tentative test laboratory in the area ten years ago. In the case of our Toowoomba facility we see that we can play a key role in their plans to develop the area as a major road and rail transport hub as recycling the old truck tyres will be a vital component of this.”
The tyre recycling plant will be built at the Wellcamp Business Park, near Toowoomba Airport and when completed will process approximately 700,000 old tyres per year into eight million litres of oil, 7,700 tonnes of carbon black and 2,000 tonnes of steel.
GDT plans to eventually establish seven processing plants in Australia to handle the 25 million old car and truck tyres discarded each year. The company proposes the potential for export of the technology is limitless and they are currently responding to enquiries to establish plants in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Middle East, Africa, Pakistan, Russia and New Zealand.