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RECIRCLE AWARDS 2021
Kal Tire: Silver Collaborator
Darren Flint, Kal Tire’s Regional Vice President for the UK and
West Africa, spoke to us about the latest developments at the
mining tyre specialist and the company’s support of the Recircle Awards.
Darren Flint
calculator’s data to recognise customers with one to five leaves according to the tonnage or percentage of the fleet running
retreads. It’s been great to see customers celebrating earning a ‘leaf’ and doing their part. For customers, the Maple Program provides
those quantifiable fuel and carbon emission savings that can be used in corporate reporting.
Your innovative new tyre recycling facility in Chile has also gained plaudits for its innovation and forward-thinking. Could you please update us on this project and indeed any other activities within the tyre recycling sector.
Thank you. We are reaching some exciting milestones at our recycling facility in Chile. One of the two thermal conversion reactors has successfully completed commissioning and is now undergoing full load tests. We have full production in sight, and that means the ability to process 20,000
kilograms of tyres—the equivalent of five 63” tyres ever y day.
The thermal conversion process uses heat and
friction to induce a reaction that converts tyres into their
base
elements (fuel oil,
steel and carbon black) so they
can be reused. It’s taken an enormous amount
of resources to develop a solution at the top of the recycling hierarchy, but we wanted to ensure our facility was being built to the highest standards in ever y way.
We’re looking to be in full production this summer and we know this is a welcome offering for customers there. Being a part of a circular economy is ver y exciting for us.
What can we expect from Kal Tire in the future in the area of sustainability? Are there any new projects on the horizon?
Sustainability is a priority for us, not just in how we help take care of the environment, but also in how we help take care of the communities we operate in. Right now, a core focus is moving the Chile recycling facility toward full production by summer. This will be the tip of a significant achievement for us, so we’re very proud of our
teams leading this
project and we’re looking
forward to helping to making an
impact in reducing scrap
piles and keeping tyres out of the
waste stream.
Thank you for
supporting the inaugural edition of the
Recircle Awards as a Silver Collaborator. Could you outline for us the importance of sustainability issues within Kal Tire’s corporate vision?
Sustainability is very important at Kal Tire. Over the years, it’s become a driving force in how we work and how we help solve customers’ challenges.
We started offering retreading in the late 1970’s in Canada more as a way to help our mining customers ensure tyre availability, but now customers really also value how retreading can help them reduce their carbon footprint and extend tyre life. Our retreading capabilities have continued to evolve over nearly 50 years, and now our technology allows us to deliver custom application-specific tread patterns and high-quality compounds that can give premium mining tyres a second or even third life, so there are enormous savings in the fuel and
carbon emissions, and retreads still offer the performance of new tyres. Because meeting sustainability targets has become even more of a priority for customers, we wanted to create a way to quantify and recognise customers for the fuel and carbon emissions they save by retreading, and that led to the creation of our Maple Program.
We’ve also invested heavily in sustainable end-of-life mining tyre solutions. In Canada, through a partnership with a recycling facility, mining customers can have their tyres shredded and put back into use. In Chile, we are very excited that our new thermal conversion OTR tyre recycling facility will soon be in full production.
You received three nominations in this year’s Recircle Awards, two of which were for the company’s high levels of innovation in introducing the Maple Program and Carbon Calculator. Could you please outline the benefits of these programmes and their importance in Kal Tire’s approach to the mining sector?
We were very honoured to have our Maple Program recognised. With government regulations in some regions requiring customers to demonstrate their carbon reduction efforts, we decided to create a tool and a program to help customers demonstrate and celebrate the environmental savings of retreading.
First, we needed the tool. Our carbon calculator, which is certified by a third-party leader in environmental certification, shares fuel and emissions saved in production during the retreading process compared to the production of a new tyre.
The Maple Program that we developed then uses the carbon
XII Recircle Awards 2021