South African Tyre Collection Infrastructure: Setting Up Operations

By:     Conor Murphy

Expert review by:     Conor Murphy

Building a tyre collection operation in South Africa requires engagement with a waste management landscape that is more diverse, more geographically dispersed, and more economically stratified than almost any comparable market. The country’s geography spans from dense urban centres in Gauteng and Cape Town, through mid-sized cities and manufacturing towns, to extensive rural areas where formal waste management infrastructure is minimal or absent. The economic landscape ranges from formal first-world commercial operations at one end to subsistence waste picking at the other.

A tyre collection operation that only serves formal urban tyre retailers in Johannesburg misses the substantial volumes generated at rural workshops, agricultural operations, the transport sector along national highways, and the mining sector in remote locations. Capturing these volumes requires either a geographic network that accepts the transport cost of wide-area collection, or a model that integrates informal collectors who already access dispersed generation points and who can be organised to bring tyres to formal aggregation points.

The REDISA scheme demonstrated both the potential and the challenges of this model. At its peak it collected tyres from across South Africa through a combination of formal collection points and paid informal collectors, achieving collection rates that surprised international observers. The lesson from REDISA’s approach is not that the model failed, but that the logistics and commercial structure of wide-area tyre collection in South Africa are genuinely achievable, provided the organisational and funding framework is sustainable.

For businesses planning tyre collection operations in South Africa, the infrastructure questions are: which geographic area to serve, what collection model to use (direct collection, network of drop-off points, integration of informal collectors), what collection vehicle fleet is needed, how to aggregate collected tyres efficiently before processing, and what on-site processing equipment at the aggregation point reduces the transport cost of moving bulky loose tyres.

Gradeall International’s tyre processing equipment including the MKII tyre baler, truck tyre sidewall cutter, and the full tyre recycling equipment range from Gradeall’s Dungannon, Northern Ireland facility enables the processing that makes tyre collection economics viable across South Africa’s diverse geography. With nearly 40 years of manufacturing experience and equipment in over 100 countries, Gradeall has direct experience of supporting tyre collection and processing infrastructure development in emerging markets.

Generation Points: Mapping the South African Tyre Waste Stream

Understanding where tyres are generated across South Africa is the foundation for designing a collection operation. The major generation categories:

Urban tyre retail and fitment centres. The densest generation points are urban and suburban tyre fitment centres in Gauteng, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, and other major cities. National tyre retail chains (Hi-Q, Tiger Wheel and Tyre, Supa Quick, and independent operators) generate consistent, predictable car and light van tyre volumes at locations that are accessible to formal collection vehicles. These are the easiest generation points to serve and typically the starting point for any new tyre collection operation.

Transport and logistics sector. South Africa’s trucking and logistics sector is one of the largest in Africa. The national highway network, particularly the N1, N3, and N4 corridors, supports intensive heavy vehicle traffic. Fleet operators, transport companies, and roadside truck stops along these corridors generate significant truck tyre volumes. Capturing this stream requires either direct relationships with major fleet operators (who may aggregate tyres at depots) or roadside collection points positioned along major trucking routes.

Mining sector. South Africa’s mining industry, spanning gold, platinum group metals, coal, iron ore, manganese, and chrome, generates OTR and haul truck tyre volumes that are among the largest in the world by sector. The Witwatersrand basin, the Bushveld Igneous Complex, the Mpumalanga coalfields, and the Northern Cape iron ore fields are the primary mining regions. OTR tyres from these operations require specialist processing equipment and present logistics challenges due to their size and weight.

Agricultural sector. Commercial farming across the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal midlands, Mpumalanga Highveld, and the Free State generates agricultural tyre waste from tractors, harvesters, and farm equipment. Agricultural tyres are often disposed of informally in rural areas because formal collection is not accessible; capturing this stream through rural aggregation points improves both environmental outcomes and collection volume.

Informal transport. South Africa’s minibus taxi industry, one of the largest informal transit networks in the world, generates significant tyre waste from the country’s approximately 250,000 minibus taxis. Taxi tyre management is often informal; engaging with taxi associations and operators to channel this tyre stream through legitimate collection is both a regulatory compliance matter and a volume opportunity.

Collection Models: Formal, Informal, and Hybrid

Direct collection model. A collection business operates its own vehicles and collects directly from generation points on a scheduled or on-call basis. This model provides the tightest control over tyre volumes, condition, and documentation but requires significant vehicle fleet investment and limits geographic reach to areas where direct collection is economically viable given transport distances.

Aggregation point model. The collection business establishes a network of aggregation points (buy-back centres, drop-off points, regional depots) where tyre generators can bring their tyres. Tyre generators bring tyres to the nearest aggregation point; the collection business makes periodic collection runs to aggregate the accumulated volumes from each point to the central processing facility. This model extends geographic reach without requiring direct collection from every generation point, at the cost of requiring generators to transport their tyres to the aggregation point.

Informal collector integration. South Africa’s informal waste picking sector provides a potentially large collection workforce already embedded in communities and operating at economic levels that make small-volume collection viable where formal commercial collection is not. A tyre collection operation that pays informal collectors per tyre delivered to an aggregation point can access dispersed volumes that no formal collection model could reach economically. The compliance challenge is ensuring that informal collectors operate within the Waste Tyre Regulations’ framework for waste tyre movements.

Hybrid model. The most effective collection operations in South Africa typically combine elements of all three approaches: direct scheduled collection from high-volume urban formal generators, aggregation points for medium-volume regional generators, and informal collector integration for dispersed low-volume rural and peri-urban sources.

Transport Economics and Volume Reduction

The single most important factor in South African tyre collection economics is the transport cost per tyre from collection point to processing facility. Loose tyres are bulky and low-density; a collection vehicle loaded with loose car tyres carries relatively few tyres per vehicle load, making the transport cost per tyre high.

Volume reduction at the collection point or aggregation point, through either compaction or initial size reduction, directly improves transport economics by increasing the number of tyres that can be transported per vehicle load. Two approaches are used in practice:

Tyre baling at the aggregation point. If the aggregation point has sufficient volume to justify a tyre baler, baling loose tyres into PAS 108-format bales dramatically improves transport density. A bale containing 100 car tyres occupies a defined, stackable volume on a flatbed vehicle; the same 100 loose car tyres would fill the same vehicle with much lower payload efficiency. The MKII tyre baler at a regional aggregation point can transform the transport economics of regional tyre collection, making collection from wider geographic areas economically viable.

Sidewall cutting for truck tyres. Truck tyres are large enough that their transport cost per tyre is significant even before considering the transport of loose intact tyres. Sidewall cutting at the aggregation point with Gradeall’s truck tyre sidewall cutter reduces truck tyre volume by removing the sidewalls, making the remaining tread bands significantly more compact for transport.

Regulatory Documentation for Collection Operations

Tyre collection operations in South Africa must maintain documentation in compliance with the Waste Tyre Regulations and the underlying NEMWA requirements. The practical documentation requirements for a licensed collection operation:

Waste manifests. Movements of waste tyres from generators to collection points and from collection points to processing facilities require waste manifest documentation identifying the waste type, quantity, originating party, receiving party, and the transporter. The manifest system creates the chain of custody documentation that demonstrates regulatory compliance.

Generator records. Records of the quantities of tyres collected from each generation point, maintained by date, location, and tyre type, support both the collection operation’s own operational management and the IWMP reporting requirements.

Vehicle and transporter registration. Collection vehicles transporting waste tyres must be operated by registered waste transporters. The registration status of the collection operation’s vehicles and any subcontract collectors must be maintained and verified.

Processor reception records. When tyres are delivered to a processing facility, the receiving processor issues a receipt or intake record that completes the chain of custody from generator to processor. This documentation is required for IWMP compliance reporting at the producer level.

Collection infrastructure is where the South African tyre recycling system either works or fails,” says Conor Murphy, Director of Gradeall International. “The processing facilities and the equipment investment are straightforward if the tyres arrive. The hard part is the collection network, and that is where we see the most creative solutions combining formal and informal models across South Africa’s geography.”

Contact Gradeall International for tyre processing equipment that improves collection economics and supports compliant tyre management operations across South Africa.

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