RE-TIRE
Environmental Services - Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
RE-TIRE Employees
RE-TIRE Details
RE-TIRE is a tire recycling project that is taking end of life tires and converting them into crumb rubber to be sold to asphalt companies. New Zealand has a massive problem with end of life tire recycling and currently, no solution is in place. The problem with end of life tires here in New Zealand is that they are either being burned in concrete kilns or being shipped abroad. Alternatively they are stockpiled, and if they catch on fire, it can take over a month to put out. Even more concerning is that over 70% of all tires in New Zealand are discarded illegally.Another problem is that current roading material is of low quality and creates a lot of ambient noise. Our mission is to work towards infusing crumb rubber into asphalt to increase the longevity of NZ's roads and offer a solution for the 8 Million end of life tires that are discarded annually in New Zealand alone. Tire recycling companies that have existed in New Zealand in the past have not been able to create a market for the crumb rubber made at the end of the tire recycling process. We are different, because our aim is to create a market before investing in tire recycling machinery by partnering with large scale, socially focussed, long term construction projects. If our pilot is successful and we can scale our idea throughout New Zealand, we will create jobs in local communities, modernise New Zealand's infrastructure and positively impact the environment. We know that it is an ambitious mission, but international examples show that this model can work. For instance, Germany requires 20% of crumb rubber to be infused into all asphalt for roading. We are aware that certain regulations need to be adapted for this project to be scaled throughout New Zealand, but the partnerships we have been able to form make us confident that there is significant potential for our project to succeed.
