THE KEY FACTS

Truck & car tyres
2,500 hrs p.a.
20,000 tonnes p.a.
11 tonnes p.hr.
4,000m sq.

Location: Co. Louth
Country:
Ireland
Project Type:
Turnkey

AES, based in Co. Louth, specialises in the recycling of rubber tyres; from industrial shredding, granulation and milling to producing recycled products fit for sale. Being the only one of its kind in Ireland, it provides a service to business from across the country.

The Challenge

As there was no other facility in Ireland that could recycle tyres at a large scale, AES needed a new plant in order to keep up with the demand for the recycled tyre products.

AES challenged Turmec to design and build an 80 tonne per day plant in Dundalk, Co. Louth.

THE SOLUTION

The recycling plant Turmec built for AES is made of 3 different halls, in which the materials pass through consecutively.

The first is the primary shedding hall, where the primary shredder shreds the rubber down to a 0 – 100mm product. The material then continues into a stockpile outside or is fed into the next stage.

The next hall the rubber is to go through is the Grizzly hall; this is where the material is separated into metal, fibre and rubber. The rubber is then taken through a walking floor bunker and fed out in a controlled capacity into 2 different grizzly shredders, that chop it down to 0-20mm. A vibrating deck is then used to split it into 3 products: 0-10mm, 10-20mm & metal.

Whilst the material is being separated, there is also a vacuum in the hall which extracts all fibrous materials into cyclones; the fibre is taken out of these and put into a truck.

Back in the grizzly hall, conveyers pass the materials through the wall in augers into the third and final hall.

The rubber material will then pass through the milling hall and put through 2 separate mills, which grind down the rubber to 1-3mm and 2-6mm products. These products can then be sold to produce AstroTurf pitches, curbing, rubber mats and more.

OUTCOME

Thanks to the new recycling plant, AES currently divert 30,000 tonnes of tyres from landfill each year, creating a profitable product whilst doing so. This has allowed for company growth.

AES is the first plant of its kind in Ireland: “Our facility can recycle more than 30,000 tonnes of tyres every year – the equivalent of over 3.5 million tyres.”