City’s mobile shredder offers new way to recycle tires
Tire shreds filling a roll-off have multiple potential uses including recycled rubber products, rubberized asphalt, septic system leachfield filler, even a possible energy source for nearby high-tech environmentally safe cement plants.
The South Central Solid Waste Authority has opened a whole new avenue of recycling for the city and county with the purchase of a heavy duty mobile tire shredder.
“Scrap tires have always been problematic, but up until last week our only local management and disposal option was to landfill them,” says SCSWA Director Patrick Peck. “Now we have a way to turn old, worn out tires to beneficial use by shredding them.”
The new $200,000 shredder was purchased with grant funds through the New Mexico Environment Department Recycling and Illegal Dumping Alliance. It was delivered on Tuesday of last week; on Wednesday it was grinding through a test run at the city’s Fleet Services Section, where 750 tires were waiting to be shredded. In one and a half days, the shredder filled two roll-offs with tire shreds which can be recycled into various products.
“The benefits are immeasurable,” said David Maestas, interim director of the city’s transportation department, “We can put a price on the savings from shredding versus landfilling: the cost just went from $1 apiece to landfill, to 30 cents each to shred.“However,” Maestas continues, “you can’t put a price on the benefit of saved space in the landfill, or on the renewable aspect. These shreds can now be processed and potentially have many beneficial uses — all sorts of recycled rubber products, septic system leachfield filler, roadbed material, a possible energy source for nearby high-tech environmentally safe cement plants.
“Fleet Services is very pleased to be participating in this first time regional effort to utilize scrap tires for beneficial purposes,” Maestas said, “turning a negative into an environmental positive.”
“The primary job of the shredder will be grinding up tires from illegal dumps, in partnership with Doña Ana County Codes Enforcement; it’s scheduled for May 23 at a cleanup in Vado,” says Patrick Peck. “This machine performed amazingly well during it’s test run, going through hundreds of tires in half the time we anticipated. And because the shredder is mobile, it goes to the project site, eliminating the cost of hauling and handling very heavy tires.”
