Plant types
Eight recycling plants, each with a project report behind it.
For every plant type below there is a model-plant detailed project report: the process, the machinery, the approvals and a financial model. These pages show what each plant does and what decides whether it pays. The numbers stay in the report.
01Tyres & rubber
Tyres & rubber
One waste stream, four plants that feed each other: crumb makes the chips and powder that reclaim and pyrolysis need, and pyrolysis char becomes recovered carbon black.
- Tyres & rubber
Crumb rubber
End-of-life tyres shredded, rasped and milled into chips, granules and powder, with the steel recovered.
- From
- end-of-life tyres
- To
- rubber chips, granules and powder
- Tyres & rubber
Reclaim rubber
Crumb devulcanised under heat and pressure into sheets that compounders mix with virgin rubber.
- From
- tyre crumb
- To
- whole-tyre reclaim and high-tensile reclaim
- Tyres & rubber
Tyre pyrolysis oil
Shredded tyres heated without oxygen into industrial fuel oil, char and steel, in a continuous plant.
- From
- wire-free tyre chips
- To
- tyre pyrolysis oil, char and steel wire
- Tyres & rubber
Recovered carbon black
Pyrolysis char cleaned, milled and pelletised into a filler that replaces part of virgin carbon black.
- From
- pyrolysis char
- To
- pelletised recovered carbon black and fine powder
02Batteries
Batteries
Two very different plants under one set of rules: a secondary-lead smelter for lead-acid batteries, and a mechanical black-mass plant for lithium-ion cells.
- Batteries
Lead-acid battery recycling
Used batteries broken, smelted and refined into soft lead and alloys, with the polypropylene recovered.
- From
- used lead-acid batteries
- To
- soft lead, antimonial and calcium alloys and washed polypropylene chips
- Batteries
Lithium-ion battery recycling
Spent EV and electronics batteries discharged, shredded and separated into black mass, copper, aluminium and steel.
- From
- spent Li-ion packs and cells
- To
- black mass, copper and aluminium fractions and steel and plastics
03Plastics
Plastics
Washing and pelletising rigid polyolefins into granules converters can use, with PET as the assessed alternative.
04Metals
Metals
Copper scrap and cable back to ingot, rod or cathode grade: the first model plant and the template for the rest.
Considering a plant that is not listed?
The method is the same for any recycling or process plant: feed, buyers, technology, cost and financing. Tell us what you are weighing up.