Tyre Recycling Plant Equipment: What Machinery a Facility Needs

By:     Kieran Donnelly

Designing a Tyre Recycling Plant: Start with the End Market

The equipment configuration of a tyre recycling facility is determined first and foremost by its intended output. A facility producing PAS 108 civil engineering bales needs a different primary equipment configuration from one producing crumb rubber for artificial turf infill, which differs again from one processing OTR tyres from mining operations. The end market determines the processing route, and the processing route determines the equipment.

This principle seems obvious but is frequently overlooked in facility planning, where equipment selection sometimes begins with “what is available” rather than “what output do we need to produce.” A facility that installs a shredding line and then looks for crumb rubber customers faces a different market position from one that secures civil engineering bale contracts and then installs the baling equipment needed to fulfil them. The market-first approach produces better capital allocation and better commercial outcomes.

This guide covers the equipment categories needed at each stage of tyre recycling, with reference to the specific Gradeall equipment that performs the front-end processing functions. Gradeall International, based in Dungannon, Northern Ireland, has supplied tyre processing equipment to recycling facilities across the UK, Ireland, and over 100 countries for nearly 40 years. The tyre recycling equipment range addresses the intake, sorting, size reduction, and baling functions that every tyre recycling plant needs at the front of its processing chain.

Intake and Sorting Equipment

Tyre intake and weighing. A receiving facility for used tyres needs a means of recording incoming tyre quantities for both commercial and regulatory purposes. Weigh bridge or platform scale provision at the intake point records incoming tyre weights for duty of care documentation and commercial invoicing. For facilities paying per-tyre or per-tonne for incoming material, accurate weighing at intake is essential.

Manual sorting area. Before mechanical processing, incoming tyres must be sorted by type (car, van, truck, agricultural, OTR) and by condition (retreading candidates, baling candidates, shredding candidates). This sorting is typically done manually with appropriate handling equipment. A well-designed sorting area has adequate space for tyre storage by category, good lighting, and handling equipment (tyre trolleys, conveyor sections, or roller tables) to move tyres between sorting and processing stages without manual carrying over excessive distances.

Rim separation. Many incoming tyres arrive with wheels (rims) still attached. The steel or alloy rim must be separated from the tyre before processing. Gradeall’s tyre rim separator handles car and van tyres; the truck tyre rim separator handles the heavier wheels from HGV and truck tyres. Rim separation recovers the steel and alloy wheels as a separate material stream with its own commercial value, while allowing the separated tyre to proceed through the processing line without the rim interfering with downstream equipment.

Sidewall Cutting Equipment

Sidewall cutting is the first mechanical processing step for tyres that are too large or too stiff for direct baling or for efficient shredding. The sidewall cutter removes the sidewalls (the flexible side sections of the tyre) from the tread band (the central contact patch section), reducing the tyre’s volume and making it easier to handle and process further.

For car and light van tyres. Gradeall’s car tyre sidewall cutter processes passenger car and light van tyres efficiently. The removed sidewalls and the tread band are separated material fractions that may go to different subsequent processing steps; sidewalls are often processed for specific applications while tread bands go to shredding or baling.

For truck and HGV tyres. Truck tyres are substantially larger and more structurally robust than car tyres, requiring more powerful cutting equipment. Gradeall’s truck tyre sidewall cutter is designed specifically for the dimensions and steel-reinforced construction of truck and bus tyres. Processing truck tyres through a sidewall cutter before shredding significantly improves shredding throughput by reducing the size and mass of material entering the primary shredder.

For OTR and earthmover tyres. The largest tyres from mining, quarrying, and earthmoving operations present a specific processing challenge due to their exceptional size and weight. These tyres can be several metres in diameter and weigh several tonnes each. Gradeall’s OTR tyre sidewall cutter and OTR tyre splitter handle these extreme dimensions, reducing OTR tyres to sections that can be managed by subsequent processing equipment.

The agricultural tyre shear addresses the specific dimensions of agricultural tyres from farm machinery, which differ from both standard car/van tyres and from large OTR equipment tyres.

Tyre Baling Equipment

For facilities producing PAS 108 civil engineering bales, the tyre baler is the primary value-adding piece of equipment. The baler compresses whole car and light van tyres into dense, tied bales that meet the structural and dimensional requirements of PAS 108.

The MKII tyre baler. Gradeall’s MKII tyre baler is the workhorse of the UK tyre baling industry, producing up to six PAS 108-compliant bales per hour. A facility processing 200,000 tyres per year, producing approximately 2,000 bales, can achieve this with a single MKII baler operating across a standard single shift. Higher throughput requirements are met by operating across multiple shifts or by installing multiple balers.

The MK3 tyre baler. The MK3 tyre baler provides an alternative configuration in the Gradeall baling range, suited to operations with different throughput requirements or facility layout constraints.

Truck tyre baling. The truck tyre baler handles larger tyre formats that cannot be baled in standard car tyre balers. Truck tyre bales find applications in civil engineering projects requiring larger structural units.

Inclined conveyor systems. Loading tyres into a tyre baler manually is physically demanding and limits throughput. Gradeall’s inclined tyre baler conveyor and TBC8M tyre baler conveyor automate the tyre feed to the baler, improving throughput consistency, reducing operator fatigue, and allowing higher overall processing rates than manual loading achieves.

Shredding and Granulation Equipment

For facilities producing crumb rubber, the shredding and granulation line is the primary processing investment. This equipment is typically sourced from specialist shredding equipment manufacturers rather than from tyre processing equipment specialists; the specification of a crumb rubber production line is beyond the scope of this guide, but the context is provided here for completeness.

A crumb rubber line for processing car tyres typically consists of:

Primary shredder reducing whole or pre-cut tyres to 50 to 100mm chips. Magnetic separator removing steel wire from the chips. Secondary granulator reducing chips to 10 to 20mm granulate. Tertiary mill reducing granulate to 1 to 4mm crumb rubber. Aspiration system removing textile fibres from the crumb at each stage. Screening to classify the crumb rubber by particle size.

The capital cost of a crumb rubber production line is substantially higher than a tyre baling line for comparable throughput. A line capable of processing 10,000 to 15,000 tonnes of tyres per year into crumb rubber requires multi-million pound investment in the shredding and granulation equipment alone. The economic justification depends on the local market for crumb rubber and the available supply of tyres at an acceptable collection cost.

Supporting Facility Infrastructure

Beyond the processing equipment itself, a tyre recycling facility requires supporting infrastructure that is often underestimated in facility planning:

Tyre storage. Incoming tyres must be stored before processing. Tyre storage areas must comply with fire safety requirements including maximum stack heights, fire breaks between bays, and access routes for fire services. The fire risk associated with tyre storage is significant; facility insurance typically requires compliance with Environment Agency guidance on tyre storage.

Bale storage. PAS 108 bales must be stored awaiting collection by civil engineering contractors. A bale storage area needs a hard-standing surface capable of supporting bale weight, access for collection vehicles, and sufficient area to accumulate a buffer of bales to smooth the mismatch between production and collection schedules.

Material handling equipment. Moving tyres within the facility (from intake to sorting, from sorting to processing equipment, from baler to bale storage) requires handling equipment. Fork lifts, telehandlers, tyre conveyor systems, and tyre trolleys all reduce the manual handling burden on facility staff.

Weighing infrastructure. A weighbridge at the facility entrance records incoming and outgoing material weights for commercial and regulatory purposes. Without accurate weighing, duty of care documentation, customer invoicing, and output recording are all impaired.

Environmental permit. A tyre recycling facility accepting third-party waste tyres and processing them requires an environmental permit from the relevant environmental regulator. The permit application process requires a detailed description of the proposed operations, the waste types to be accepted, the processing equipment, the storage arrangements, and the management controls for emissions, noise, and fire risk. Allow 6 to 12 months for the permit application process in the facility planning timeline.

“The front-end processing equipment, the sidewall cutters, rim separators, balers, and conveyors, is what determines the quality of the material going into the downstream processing line,” says Conor Murphy, Director of Gradeall International. “We’ve been supplying this equipment to tyre recycling facilities for nearly 40 years. The facilities that get the front end right have better economics all the way through the chain.”

Contact Gradeall International for front-end tyre processing equipment specification for new and existing tyre recycling facilities.

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