Sidewall Cutting vs Whole Tyre Shredding: Cost and Output Comparison

By:     Kieran Donnelly

Expert review by:     Conor Murphy

Sidewall cutting and whole tyre shredding both reduce tyre waste, but treating them as alternatives to each other misses the point. They produce different outputs, serve different markets, and suit different operation types and scales. Choosing between them without understanding this distinction leads either to underinvestment in a sidewall cutter that would pay for itself quickly, or to overinvestment in a shredding line that the operation cannot practically support.

This guide sets out an objective comparison across output type, capital cost, running cost, market value, and operational fit. It is written for operators who are deciding how to set up or expand a tyre processing operation, not for those already committed to one route.

What Each Process Produces: The Fundamental Difference

Sidewall cutting removes the structural sidewall section from a tyre, leaving the tread and belt ring as the primary baler input. When combined with a baler, sidewall cutting produces two outputs: PAS 108-compliant tyre bales from the tread rings, and cut sidewall sections for energy recovery. The MKII tyre baler produces bales to the dimensions and mass requirements of PAS 108, the British standard for tyre bales in civil engineering and construction applications.

Whole tyre shredding produces rubber chips, shreds, or crumb depending on the shredder type and the number of processing stages. A single-pass primary shredder produces 50 to 150 mm rubber shreds. Achieving the 0.5 to 4 mm particle size required for crumb rubber markets requires primary shredding, granulation, steel wire separation, textile fibre separation, and screening. Each additional stage adds capital cost, energy cost, and maintenance complexity.

These are different products for different markets. Tyre bales serve civil engineering contractors and energy recovery facilities. Rubber crumb serves playground surfacing manufacturers, athletic track builders, and asphalt modifiers. Tyre shreds serve energy recovery facilities directly. There is no single output that serves all markets, and the right process depends on which market you are targeting.

Capital Cost Comparison

The sidewall cutting and baling configuration requires two main machines with modest electrical requirements. The car tyre sidewall cutter runs on 7.5 to 11 kW. The truck tyre sidewall cutter requires slightly more power but remains in a similar range. Both are compact machines that can be installed in a standard industrial unit.

A shredding line capable of producing saleable rubber crumb requires substantially more capital and space. Primary shredder motors run from 45 kW at the smaller end to over 200 kW for high-throughput machines. Add granulators, separation equipment, and screening systems, and the total capital requirement for a complete crumb line is typically five to ten times the cost of a baling configuration. Wear parts, particularly shredder knives and screens, represent a significant ongoing cost that has no equivalent in a sidewall cutting and baling operation.

Running Costs per Tonne

Energy consumption is the dominant running cost variable. A sidewall cutter and baler configuration draws 15 to 25 kW total at full load. A primary shredder alone draws 45 to 200 kW. Over a production year, this energy cost difference is substantial and compounds with electricity price movements.

Wear parts tell a similar story. Sidewall cutter blades are replaced on a schedule measured in thousands of cuts. Baler wear components are predictable and low-cost. Primary shredder knives are replaced far more frequently because they are cutting through whole tyres including bead wire, reinforcement cords, and rim-contact rubber. The knives on a high-throughput primary shredder represent a significant monthly materials cost that doesn’t exist in a baling operation.

Labour requirements per tonne are broadly comparable in a well-organised operation. A sidewall cutter and baler line with a conveyor between them can be operated by two people. A shredding operation at equivalent throughput also typically requires two to four people, though the intensity of supervision and monitoring differs.

Output Value and Market Access

PAS 108 tyre bales have an established market in civil engineering with known specifications and relatively predictable demand from contractors using bales for embankment fill, retaining structures, and drainage media. This market has clear entry requirements: the bales must meet the dimensional and mass requirements of the standard, and the producer must be able to demonstrate compliance.

Quality rubber crumb commands a higher per-tonne price than bales, but the route to that price requires consistent particle size, low steel and textile contamination, and usually some form of quality certification. Managing crumb quality is a continuous process, not a one-time setup. For operations without experience in quality rubber crumb production, the revenue upside is real but so is the path to achieving it.

Which Configuration Suits Which Operation

The clearest fit for sidewall cutting and baling is a mid-volume recycling operation handling 50 to 500 tyres per day, targeting the civil engineering bale market or energy recovery, with limited capital and space available. The equipment is compact, the process is straightforward, and the market for output is well-established. The tyre recycling equipment category covers the full range of configurations available.

The clearest fit for a shredding operation is a dedicated high-volume tyre recycling facility handling several hundred tonnes per month, with the capital, space, and technical resource to operate a multi-stage processing line and manage crumb quality specifications. This is typically a specialist operation built around shredding as its core activity, not an add-on to an existing general recycling business.

Some operations combine both approaches. Sidewall cutting before shredding improves shredder throughput and reduces knife wear, because the sidewall removal eliminates the densest steel reinforcement before the material enters the shredder. Operations that have both a sidewall cutter and a shredder often route different tyre categories differently: car tyres to the baler via the sidewall cutter, specialist categories to the shredder after cutting.

Conor Murphy, Director of Gradeall International

For most mid-volume tyre recycling operations, the sidewall cutting and baling route delivers a better financial outcome than shredding. The capital cost is lower, the running costs are lower, and the PAS 108 bale market is well-established. Shredding makes sense at scale, with the right markets, and with the management resource to run a multi-stage process properly. Without those conditions, a baling line almost always produces a better return.”

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