The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) has called for proposals on the feasibility of building a tyre depolymerisation plant (TDP) in Thomo Village, Limpopo.
The development of the TDP was expected to boost energy access and jobs in the rural region, while assisting South Africa’s waste tyre recycling and management ambitions.
The department gave interested stakeholders until January 10 to tender for the concurrent 15-month feasibility study and environmental-impact assessment, along with a final business plan.
Parties were also required to attend a compulsory briefing on Tuesday in Giyani, Limpopo.
Currently, there were an estimated 60-million stockpiled waste tyres countrywide, many of which were “illegal and unsafe or simply dumped in the veld”, the DRDLR said in the tender documents.
Almost 11-million waste tyres were said to be added to stockpiles every year.
“The TDP concept [is expected] to effectively deal with the issue of waste management by means of the depolymerisation of the waste tyres to generate energy, while reducing or possibly eliminating the amount of waste tyres that end up in landfill sites,” said the DRDLR.
The proposed plant would recycle waste tyres and process them through a depolymerisation process to produce a number of by-products such as oil, carbon, gas and steel.
The department believed that the by-products could be sold directly onto the market or converted into energy, while the steel could be sold as a raw product or further refined and sold to the market as a more finished product, such as steel sheeting.
The gas by-product could be sold, used as a combustible agent for the generation of electricity or thermal energy or be refined to make it suitable for domestic use.
The oil could be sold to the market in a low-grade form of diesel suited for shipping and agricultural purposes, and as a combustible agent to generate electricity or thermal energy. It could also be further refined to reduce emissions and increase performance, the department pointed out.