Pre-lodgement meeting for Green Distillation Technologies plant

A pre-lodgement meeting has been held with Toowoomba Regional Council to determine the planning steps for the construction of Green Distillation Technologies’ tyre recycling plant at the Wellcamp Business Estate.

The plant will be operated by Green Distillation Technologies, an Australian company that has developed a unique process to recycle old tyres into oil, carbon and steel.

The plant is expected to process 19,300 tonnes, or a mix of 658,000 car and truck tyres per year, to yield approximately eight million litres of oil, 7700 tonnes of carbon and 2000 tonnes of steel.

GDT Chief Operating Officer Trevor Bayley said that no significant obstacles were raised that cannot be easily overcome.

“We anticipate that the next step will be the lodgement of the planning development application in three to four weeks time,” he said. Mr Bayley said he anticipates construction to start by September this year.

“The plant is expected to cost $10 million to become fully operational in mid-2019 and employ 15 to 18 permanent staff and local contractors during construction.

“The initial plant will be designed to handle car and truck tyres but could be expanded at a later date to process oversize tyres such as those used for mining dump trucks, quarries, road making and agricultural equipment,” Mr Bayley said.

The tyre recycling facility will be built at the Wellcamp Business Park which is being developed by the Wagner Family, who was responsible for the construction of the new Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport. The land will be leased by Green Distillation Technologies, using their technology to recycle end-of-life tyres into oil, carbon and steel using their destructive distillation process.

The plant is expected to draw the stock of old tyres from the Toowoomba region and further west which will be expanded with the completion of the new inland rail link.

The GDT ‘destructive distillation’ process recycles each tyre into oil, carbon and steel. The oil can be used as a heating fuel, direct into stationary diesel engines or is capable of further refinement into automotive or aviation jet fuel and other oil derived products.

The oil from the recycled tyres is described as a light crude which is easy to refine and is expected to go to the Northern Oil refinery at Gladstone.

GDT said the carbon is a high-grade product that has potential for sale as carbon, in the form of carbon black. The company said it is one of the world’s most widely used ingredients in many products, ranging from tyres, plastics and paints, water filtration, printers ink, paint, electrodes, toothpaste and cosmetics.

The steel reinforcing mesh and beading of the tyre can be fully recycled or returned directly to the tyre manufacturers for reuse in new tyres.

 

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