Approximately 20% of the weight of a European manufactured tyre derives from its steel content. During processing through our grinding train steel is removed from the tyres by mechanical means, by magnets and by passage along shaker beds. These various operations remove around 99% of steel by volume which is then baled and sold. The steel element recovered from all tyres is of an extremely high quality and is, when clean, in demand by the steel industry as scrap feedstock for the production of new steel.
Our shredding processes are all designed to strip steel from the rubber and the more efficient the process is at removing the steel, the cleaner the rubber will be, so the higher its value is.
Many of the tyres that are delivered to us are still mounted on their steel rims. We remove these either by de-rimming the tyre, so that the tyre can be added to those selected for the secondary market, or by crushing the tyre with the rim in place in a specialised crushing machine. Once the rims are crushed they are they are removed by hand and placed in a cage for transport to steel recycling operations.
