Recycling tyres to recover oil and steel

In Australia alone, almost 23 million passenger tyres come to end of life every year. Each of those tyres will take at least 500 years to even start to biodegrade. Since most Australian rubbish tips are now refusing to accept old tyres, many of them end up being transported first to Vietnam, then on to China for use in cement brick kilns which emit massive amounts of toxic waste.

Green Distillation Technologies (GDT) is a Melbourne-based start-up company which has developed an environmentally sustainable and energy neutral solution using an innovative process to recover saleable commodities such as oil and carbon, and recover steel, from end-of-life tyres. The process will provide clean energy and has the potential to reduce oil imports to Australia.

Developed by Denis Randall, a scientist who has worked in the oil, gas and metallurgy fields for more than 25 years, the technology is attracting keen interest from overseas, while the company has so far completed four equity raisings. GDT is now planning to start operations at a plant in the regional NSW town of Warren in October and expects to market an IPO next year to fund additional plants in Australia, including seven in the first five years.

GDT CEO Craig Dunn says many of the challenges of building plants in regional Australia have been ameliorated by virtue of having a regionally based Commercialisation Australia Case Manager, David Mac Smith.

“I can’t speak more highly of David - he has been a sensational resource for our business opportunity. David has introduced us to some very large commercial operators who are based in regional Australia with high energy requirements, including a very large flour manufacturer and a large Canola oil producer - Manildra Flour Mills and Manildra Canola,” Dunn says.

“David certainly latched onto a real interest in the project and he has been promoting what we do in every possible avenue he can, and he has brought to us a number of leads and we have been able to chase these down and turn them into positive action.”

Smith says he is currently working with 13 participants with diverse businesses including: end-of-life tyre processing to produce oil; DAF (dissolved air flotation) water treatment; mustard seed processing to produce high protein powder; and a safer gate for the cattle industry. The most common features of participants are their need for funding and their relative isolation. “So in addition to funding, our skills and experience make us useful sounding boards - we listen to their issues and make suggestions for their resolution.

“The Commercialisation Australia process offers a good basis for the assessment of project viability and can be used as a tool to cause management to think through the project and assess its weaknesses and strengths. There are always risks; it’s the knowledge of and response to these risks that makes the difference. The Commercialisation Australia process causes management teams to think through the whole project and I find it relatively easy to see whether this has been done  effectively,” says Smith.

“All projects need to consider ‘timing’ as things can be much easier if the timing is good. Many stakeholders in the venture capital business believe timing is everything. For example, SMEs find raising funds in a slowing economy difficult; it is much easier when there is a share market or sector boom,” he says.

Zen Capital Advisors and RBS Morgans are advising GDT on its current efforts to raise capital, while RBS Morgans has been retained as lead underwriter on the company’s planned $10 million IPO. To date, GDT has completed four equity raisings and received government grants.

For more information on GDT, go to www.gdtc6.com.

Article details courtesy of Commercialisation Australia, for more information go to www.commercialisationaustralia.gov.au.