Perth, Australia, based CTS Tyre Recycling has reached a landmark first mover agreement with transport specialists Matic Group that will see more than 3,500 tyres diverted annually away from landfill and repurposed through recycling
Matic Group is one of Western Australia’s iconic transport companies and operates a fleet of more than 200 trucks and 800 various pieces of equipment.
The agreement will see Matic Group’s end-of-life tyres processed at CTS Tyre Recycling’s new $40- million facility at Neerabup, north of Perth.
With the support of a joint federal and state government grant, Perth company CTS Tyre Recycling has committed to a major expansion of commercial applications at the new facility, which is scheduled to open later this year.
The Neerabup project will deliver a state-of-the-art tyre recycling plant to process waste tyres into crumb rubber, tyre derived products and reusable high tensile steel wire. The company’s tyre recycling process will be a first for Australia to include a “pre-shredding” process to enable complete on-site recycling of “Off The Road” (OTR) tyres of the type and size used on massive haul trucks across the mining industry.
The company has most recently also purchased advanced rubber moulding equipment to produce a range of high-value speciality rubber products, including acoustic underlay and a range of rubber matting suitable for soft-fall flooring, equestrian surfaces, farm matting, gym matting, load restraint matting and other uses.
The addition of the remanufacturing line was made possible with the support of a $4.5-million grant announced by Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek and WA Environment Minister Reece Whitby as part of the joint-government Recycling Modernisation Fund.
CTS Tyre Recycling managing director Leigh Cometti says the volume of tyres pledged from Matic Group is the equivalent of more than 200 tonnes of waste annually.
The Matic Group is a major player in the transport and logistics industry, with depots in Perth, Geraldton, Newman, Tom Price, Karratha, Darwin, Alice Springs and Adelaide. Danny and Katia Matic started their business in 2002 in the pneumatic tanker sector, initially delivering cement and lime.
The company later increased its focus to include heavy haulage, specialised freight, Off The Road (OTR) Tyres, mining transport and project logistics. Matic Group today has major contracts with Rio Tinto, Cockburn Cement, Summit and Adelaide Brighton Cement. CTS Tyre Recycling (together with parent company Complete Tyre Solutions) will provide Matic Group with a full service offering whereby it can sell a tyre, service and maintain where required, and recycle the end-of-life product, placing it and its business partners at the forefront of the tyre industry’s move towards a circular economy.
It will be the only market participant in Australia able to provide such a service across all tyre sectors, including the massive tyres used on mine site haul trucks, and to offer significant reductions in ongoing operating costs for its customers.
“It’s about processing used goods or waste material to produce something that is often better than the original,” said Cometti. “This is about doing the right thing when it comes to tyre waste,” he added.
“I’ve known Danny and Katia for many years and I’m not at all surprised to see their commitment to this partnership.”
Matic said the agreement was good for business and for the environment. “We know that our industry, and other industries across mining, resources, and transport and logistics, all have a role to play in reducing waste and respecting the environment that we operate in,” he said.
“Knowing that our end-of-life tyres can be repurposed as new rubber products is certainly a leap in the right direction. Even more so as once the load restraint matting becomes degraded, we will simply return it to CTS Tyre Recycling and it goes through the recycling process again.”
Matic Group will also provide logistics solutions for Complete Tyre Solutions for the movement of surface mining and OTR tyres.
“This is another step towards a truly circular economy for one of the world’s most used circular products!” said Cometti. “And we greatly appreciate the contributions of the federal and state governments in supporting our endeavours.”
