New tyre recycling plant in Hammarsdale

DURBAN-based Mathe Group, which is leading the way in waste tyre recycling in South Africa, has commissioned a multi-million Rand tyre processing facility in Hammarsdale.

The 2 500 square metre factory and 1 000 square metre warehouse that came on stream in February were equipped with approximately R20-million worth of cutting-edge equipment that was brought in from China last year.

Based on sophisticated American technology, it is the first of its kind in South Africa. “It has the capacity to manufacture two tons of truck tyres per hour and up to 24 tons per day. At present, we are feeding in a truck tyre every one and a half minutes,” said Vusumuzi Mathe, the entrepreneur who set up Mathe Group in 2010.

Mathe Group began reprocessing used and legacy truck tyres into rubber crumb (or granulate) in very limited quantities in late 2011. In 2013, the company obtained a licence to manufacture rubber crumb without restriction on quantities and set up a small 850 square metre factory in New Germany.

Construction of the new Hammarsdale facility began in early 2015 as a means of relocating and updating the very constrained operation in New Germany.

“The new operation is four times larger than its predecessor. It is a completely different plant and far more advanced,” Mathe said.

The New Germany operation is in the process of being disassembled. Some of the equipment will be relocated to Hammarsdale for the manufacture of specialised products in smaller volumes.

According to Mathe, Mathe Group processed approximately 40 000 tyres during 2015. ”Over the next two years, this is expected to dramatically increase to approximately 150 000 tyres. These 150 000 tyres will produce approximately 7000 tons of rubber crumb per annum,” he said.

At present, 50 per cent of the rubber crumb produced at Mathe Group Hammarsdale is exported. The remainder is sold locally with a large portion going into downstream exports through the manufacture of products that are sold globally.

He said that Mathe Group enjoyed a strong working relationship with Redisa, through which it receives deliveries of used truck tyres daily. Most are trucked in from all over the country, including the KZN area. The Hammarsdale factory consumes 350 truck tyres each shift.

The Redisa Integrated Industry Waste Tyre Management Plan was approved by parliament in November 2012. It supports and promotes tyre recycling, providing the collection and depot infrastructure required to collect waste tyres from across the entire country and deliver them to approved processors and recyclers.

This is funded via the tyre levy which is collected from tyre manufacturers in the form of a waste management fee charged on each kilogram of tyre rubber that is produced.

This initiative is intended to drastically reduce the stockpile of waste tyres that has accumulated in South Africa for decades. Each year, an estimated 11 million waste tyres are added to this.

As tyres are designed to be robust and durable, they are notoriously difficult to recycle and take extremely long periods to biodegrade. The mounting number of waste tyres in South Africa has become a health and environmental hazard.

Mathe added that the company was pleased to be making a contribution to improving the environment and would work closely with Redisa on developing applications for the use of waste tyres going forward.