From wheels to wings: How Wastefront plans to turn old tyres into jet fuel
Millions of tonnes of tyre waste can be turned into sustainable aviation fuel for the airline industry.
Every year, three billion tyres reach the end of their lives, creating 30 million tonnes of waste. This isn't just a storage issue – it's an environmental one. Research has found tyre particles in oceans, contributing to what scientists call a 'plastic soup.’
Meanwhile, a tyre additive known as 6PPD has been linked to mass salmon die-offs in the Pacific Northwest. This chemical has now been detected in freshwater, ocean sediments, soil, and even human urine.
Finding opportunity in waste
But where others see a problem, Vianney Vales sees an opportunity. The CEO of Norwegian company Wastefront has developed a plan to transform this mounting waste into something the aviation industry needs a lot of: sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). As he explains:
"What we want to do is to transform a problematic waste into a super valuable product. We can create SAF with a very low environmental footprint at a competitive cost."
Wastefront’s solution is timely. Europe and the US have banned landfilling tyres, while recent regulations prohibit using shredded tyres in playgrounds and sports fields due to toxic leaching. Even burning tyres for energy, while legal, raises serious environmental concerns.
This has led to some nations in the so-called Global North exporting their tyre waste to countries like India, where imports of waste tyres have increased more than fivefold. This has turned the country into what local media describe as a "dumping ground for scrap tyres."
How it works
Wastefront's process begins by breaking down tyres into their core components. First, the steel is separated for recycling using electromagnetic separation. The remaining material, containing rubber and carbon black, undergoes pyrolysis – heating without oxygen.
During this process, the rubber decomposes into tyre pyrolysis oil, while the carbon black emerges unchanged as 'recovered carbon black', which can be recycled into new tyres.
The process is notably efficient, as gases produced during pyrolysis are recycled to power the system itself. "The whole system is independent and does not need external energy," Vales notes.
In terms of environmental benefits, the resulting SAF offers an 80%+ reduction in CO2 lifecycle emissions.
From concept to reality
Construction of Wastefront's first facility in Sunderland, UK, will begin by the end of this year, with operations expected to start in 2026. The plant will be built in phases, starting with one module producing 8,000 tons of oil annually and eventually expanding to four modules with a total capacity of 32,000 tons per year.
The company's ambitions extend well beyond Sunderland. By 2030, Wastefront plans to operate four large-scale plants, collectively producing 128,000 tons of oil annually. This will feed into a centralized SAF facility capable of converting 70% of this oil into SAF, yielding approximately 90,000 tons of SAF per year.
The company has already identified opportunities in the US, Middle East, and Northern Europe, reflecting the global nature of both the tyre waste problem and the proposed solution.
Looking at the so-called green premium, Vales says production costs are comparable to HEFA, currently the most common SAF pathway, but without the feedstock supply challenges that often plague HEFA producers.
This comes at a time when the global tyre pyrolysis market is gaining momentum, with analysts projecting growth from $91.1 million in 2022 to $270.84 million by 2031.
A part of the solution
While Wastefront's solution clearly won't single-handedly solve aviation's emissions challenge, it represents what Vales calls a "quick win" – a practical solution that can be scaled relatively quickly using existing waste streams.
"Let's start with something that works," Vales emphasises. "We can't solve the whole problem, but we are one of the few solutions that can be available soon for the 2030 targets and at a competitive cost."
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