University of Buffalo research group awarded quarter million dollars from New York State DEC to assess and improve tyre recycling.
Funding into Tyre Recycling Research
A New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) grant worth a quarter million dollars has been awarded to the University of Buffalo RENEW Institute. The recently announced partnership builds upon the state’s 2003 Waste Tyre Management and Recycling Act, which mandated market development for waste tyres, prohibited land burial of these tyres, and instituted a recycling fee on each new tyre sold in the state to fund the clean-up of non-compliant tyre waste stockpiles, among other activities.
“The project is well-aligned with RENEW’s mission to bring together teams of multidisciplinary faculty to focus on complex issues related to energy and the environment. RENEW’s overall goal to enable a regenerative economy includes improving recycling of all materials,” says RENEW Institute Director and SUNY Distinguished Professor Amit Goyal, who is also the project’s director.
DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos said; “New York residents and businesses generate up to 20 million waste tyres each year and to achieve our state’s environmental sustainability goals we must find productive reuses of the materials. DEC has already taken effective actions to address illegal tyre stockpiles that created threats to public health and the environment, but we must do more to strengthen tyre recycling markets and infrastructure. We welcome this newest partnership with UB to help reduce an abundant and challenging waste stream and recycle tyres in an economically and environmentally beneficial way.”
The DEC and UB will explore different options for the beneficial use of whole tyres and tyre by-products other than refurbishing these tyres for reuse on vehicles or use as fuel to be burned in power plants, paper mills and other facilities. UB will inventory and evaluate existing data, assess the current supply and demand for various forms of tyre rubber in New York and across the U.S., and evaluate methods to improve the waste tyre recycling infrastructure and the marketability of secondary tyre-based materials and products.
In addition, UB will evaluate policy options that may be appropriate to promote waste tyre rubber marketability and develop recycling markets for waste tyres in New York. This project is funded by the state’s Waste Management and Clean-up Account, which is supported by the state’s tyre recycling fee.
Source: University of Buffalo
