Truck Tyre Sidewall Cutting: Processing HGV and Commercial Tyres

By:     Kieran Donnelly

Expert review by:     Conor Murphy

Truck and HGV tyres arrive at tyre recyclers, waste transfer stations, and tyre dealers in significant volumes. Fleet operators, haulage companies, logistics businesses, and local authorities all generate substantial quantities of end-of-life truck tyres on a regular basis. In weight and rubber content, a single truck tyre is equivalent to six to eight car tyres.

The problem is that truck tyres don’t process like car tyres. The sidewall structure of an HGV tyre is fundamentally different: multiple plies of steel-reinforced rubber, significantly greater wall thickness, and a much higher spring-back force when compressed. A standard tyre baler that handles car tyres comfortably will struggle with whole truck tyres, producing lower-density bales that are harder to achieve PAS 108 compliance with and that take longer per cycle.

Sidewall cutting before baling resolves this. The removed sidewall eliminates the spring-back force, and the remaining tyre body compresses much more readily to produce a denser, more consistent bale. For operations handling significant truck tyre volumes, a dedicated truck tyre sidewall cutter alongside the baler is the standard configuration.

How the Truck Tyre Sidewall Cutter Works

Gradeall’s truck tyre sidewall cutter uses a hydraulically driven blade to cut cleanly through the sidewall section of HGV tyres. The operator positions the tyre in the cutting bay, activates the cycle, and the blade descends through the sidewall. The cut is completed in a matter of seconds per tyre.

The machine is specifically designed for the geometry and wall thickness of truck and commercial vehicle tyres. The blade specification, cutting angle, and hydraulic system capacity are all matched to the material being cut. This matters: attempting to use a car tyre sidewall cutter on a heavy truck tyre risks both poor cut quality and equipment damage.

The agricultural version of the machine handles the larger and differently proportioned sidewall structures of tractor and agricultural tyres, which have their own geometry that differs from road-going HGV tyres. For agricultural tyre volumes, the agricultural tyre shear addresses these differences directly.

The Impact on Bale Quality and Processing Rate

The difference in bale quality between whole truck tyres and de-sidewalled truck tyres is significant enough to affect both the commercial value of the bale and the compliance status.

Bale density: A truck tyre baled whole will achieve a substantially lower compressed density than the same tyre baled after sidewall removal. The spring-back resistance of the intact sidewall means the tyre never fully compresses before the platen reverses. Remove the sidewall, and the tyre body collapses under relatively modest force.

Processing rate: Whole truck tyres take longer per cycle because the baler has to work harder against the sidewall resistance. De-sidewalled tyres cycle faster, and with consistent loading, a baler handling de-sidewalled truck tyres will produce more bales per shift than one handling whole truck tyres.

PAS 108 compliance: For operations supplying tyre bales to civil engineering applications, the MKII Tyre Baler produces PAS 108-compliant bales reliably from de-sidewalled truck tyres. Consistent compliance from whole truck tyres is harder to achieve, particularly when mixing with car tyres in the same bale.

Setting Up a Truck Tyre Processing Area

The sidewall cutter and baler work best when positioned as a sequential processing line rather than as separate, unrelated operations. In a practical truck tyre processing setup:

The cutter is positioned where it can receive tyres directly from the intake area, with enough clearance for the operator to position tyres on both sides. The cut tyre body moves from the cutter to the baler’s loading area, and the cut sidewalls are collected in a separate bin or skip for their own disposal route.

Floor space requirements are additive: you need the cutter’s operating footprint plus clearance for tyre positioning, plus the baler’s operating area plus clearance. For a combined truck tyre processing line with both machines, allow approximately 60 to 80 square metres of clear operating area as a working minimum.

The tyre recycling equipment category includes all the components for a complete truck tyre processing line, from rim separation through sidewall cutting to baling.

Managing Cut Sidewalls as a Separate Material Stream

The sidewalls removed from truck tyres represent a significant material quantity in their own right. A typical HGV front steer tyre produces two sidewall sections with a combined weight of 8 to 15kg. Over a day’s processing of 50 truck tyres, that’s 400 to 750kg of cut sidewall material.

Cut sidewalls have their own processing and disposal routes:

Shredding and crumb rubber: Cut sidewalls shred more easily than whole tyres and produce clean rubber crumb for sports surfaces, rubberised asphalt, and industrial applications.

Energy recovery: Truck tyre sidewall rubber has a high calorific value and is accepted by many energy-from-waste facilities and cement kilns as tyre-derived fuel.

Civil engineering fill: In some applications, cut tyre sections are used directly as lightweight fill material, though this is distinct from PAS 108-compliant bale use.

Treat the sidewall stream as a separate output with its own disposal arrangement, rather than mixing it back with baled tyre bodies. This keeps each output material clean and maximises the options for both streams.

Who Needs Truck Tyre Sidewall Cutting Equipment

The following operations typically generate sufficient truck tyre volumes to justify a dedicated sidewall cutter:

Tyre recyclers processing mixed streams where HGV tyres represent a significant proportion of intake. The investment in a sidewall cutter pays back through improved bale quality, faster cycle times, and reduced wear on the baler.

Waste transfer stations receiving truck tyres from fleet operators and haulage companies alongside car tyres. Sorting and pre-processing truck tyres separately improves the overall quality of baled output.

Fleet maintenance operations at haulage depots, logistics centres, and local authority vehicle workshops that generate regular quantities of end-of-life truck tyres from their own fleet.

Tyre dealers specialising in or handling significant volumes of commercial vehicle tyres alongside passenger car tyres.

Contact Gradeall International to discuss your specific truck tyre volumes and the equipment configuration that best suits your operation.

Frequently Asked Questions

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