Cheshire IT recycler branches into tyre market

The company's business development manager, Neil Gater, told letsrecycle.com that SITR was “90% there” with bringing in new, state-of-the-art equipment for the tyre recycling plant at it's Cheshire headquarters.

Before 2008, the firm, which was established in 2001, had focussed on IT recycling and secure document disposal, but it has been operating tyre recycling services since the start of the year.

With the new technology almost all installed, the company has now announced that it will now also be manufacturing the Dunweedin range of rubber mulch, crumb and chippings at the Middlewich plant – allowing shredding and recycling of used tyres into a new product to all take place under one roof.

SITR's schedule of improvements has involved bringing in machinery from Canada, with Mr Gater explaining that “it's the latest shredding technology; it's been tried and tested with extensive research and development having been carried out”.

“We're one of the first companies to adopt it and use it in the UK,” he added.

Deliveries 

SITR now accepts deliveries of spent tyres for recycling, as well as arranging both one-off and scheduled collections, and they are then shredded and recycled into both the Dunweedin range of recycled rubber products and equestrian rubber.

The company's special projects manager, Angus Carnie, explained that the decision to bring the Dunweedin manufacturing process in-house represented the next in a number of major developments for the company's tyre recycling operations.

“The Dunweedin brand has some exciting new products on the immediate horizon,” he said. “It is our intention to launch the new products in the UK from September 2008.”

Products

Currently, Dunweedin offers just three products – reinforcing rubber crumb from lawns, landscaping rubber chippings and playground rubber chippings.

“At this point we will begin a structured marketing campaign which will increase brand awareness to the consumer. From January 2009 a separate marketing campaign will be instigated which will focus on penetrating the European market place,” he continued.

“SITR's plant in Cheshire is the first of six planned for the UK with a further expansion to the Continent within two years, this will guarantee the supply and demand requirements that we expect,” he added.

While Mr Gater was unable to reveal exact details of the locations the company hoped to expand into, he was confident that the new facilities in the UK “will happen”.

“There are already two facilities that we've earmarked and there are another two that we're looking at, in the south-east and north-east, in the next eight to 10 months,” he told letsrecycle.com.

He added that “the two factories we've earmarked won't have the same capacity as Middlewich but will have the manufacturing capacity to produce specific products within the Dunweedin range”, whereas the Middlewich plant can manufacture all the items made from recycled tyres in the range.

With regards expansion overseas, Mr Gater indicated that it was looking to expand both Dunweedin's brand awareness and tyre recycling facilities onto mainland Europe, including plans for two plants.

He went on to name France and Spain as being among the mainland European countries it might potentially look to build a presence in, once it had succeeded in increasing both brand awareness and its number of sites in the UK.