Albertans are celebrating the accomplishment of recycling 20 million tires in that province.
"20 million recycled tires means a cleaner environment. It also means that we have turned what was once a problem into new markets and opportunities for enterprising Albertans, a testament to the spirit behind our Alberta Advantage," said Premier Ralph Klein.
Sid Hinton, Chairman of the Tire Recycling Management Association of Alberta (TRMA), joined the Premier in September to celebrate this milestone at the Wilbert McIntyre Park in Edmonton, site of a major project using recycled rubber products.
He said that rubber sidewalk blocks and other products manufactured from recycled tire material are an innovative and safe alternative for use in parks and playgrounds.
The Tire Recycling Program was started by the Government of Alberta in 1992 as an initiative to rid the province's landfills of stockpiles of scrap tires. Today, virtually all have been eliminated and approximately three million scrap tires are recycled on an annual basis.
Alberta's tire recycling program is increasingly recognized as amongst the best in Canada and around the world. There are a growing number of businesses in the province that recycle scrap tires into various value added materials and products, including tire shred, rubber crumb and manufactured rubber products.
The TRMA was established by the Government of Alberta as a separate administrative agency to collect the $4.00 environmental levy for each new tire purchased at the retail level. The TRMA is charged with the responsibility of managing the provincial program for overseeing the recycling of scrap tires.
The first stage of the tire recycling process includes the collection and shredding of scrap tires. The tire shredding process involves the use of large machinery that cuts up tires into small pieces (one to two inch and larger). At this stage, tire shred can be used for a variety of civil engineering projects (e.g. lightweight fill material for highway projects or leachate collection material for new landfill cells), or it can be used as feedstock for the production of crumb (second stage of recycling).
The second stage of the process is crumbing. During this stage, machinery is used to remove the steel and fibre from the shred, by grinding the material into fine pieces. The steel is removed by magnets, with the fibre removed by aspiration. At this stage, crumb can be used for a variety of loose applications, including top dressing for sports fields (it protects the crown or growth layer of grass), as a replacement for sand in playgrounds (outperforms sand three to one), or it can be used as a feedstock for the production of manufactured products.
The third stage is the manufacturing of products. Alberta companies are currently manufacturing a variety of products including mats, bricks, sidewalk blocks, agricultural dairy mats, etc.
The success of Alberta's tire recycling program is due in large measure to the cooperation of a number of stakeholders. Key among these is the cooperation of municipalities and their communities.
Contact: kevin.oneil@trma.com
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