Company Profile
Tire Derived Fuel:
Auburndale Recycling Center, Inc. was established as a dedicated scrap tire processing plant for producing high quality
Tire Derived Fuel (TDF). We currently process over two million scrap tires annually for this end use and have market ability for over twice that amount. We are the largest scrap tire processor in the State of Wisconsin and we currently process over 40% of tires generated annually in the State, and have capacity for much more.We feel very strongly that all scrap
tires should be processed, to the fullest extent possible, into usable products to eliminate them from landfills. Landfills have always had their place for receiving "trash", but tires have become a useful commodity that should not be included in this "trash". Because we compete with programs that allow landfilling of these tires, whether in their whole or rough shred form, our markets for TDF far exceed the amount of material that we can acquire. Since the conception of our operation, we have strived for 100% reuse of these tires and we currently have less than 1% of our flow going to landfills. These materials mainly consist of bead and tread wire that has too much rubber attached to it to be remelted. Achieving this goal may be more expensive, but it protects people and the environment from future liability and health problems.We currently collect tires from Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, and a limited amount from Indiana and Iowa. We are currently permitted in Wisconsin and Michigan as a processing facility and in Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana as a licensed hauler. We have a wide variety of equipment that we own for the collection and processing of tires. Some of the equipment that we currently have in our possession includes the following; over 75 van and open top semi trailers, 3 semi dump trailers, a walking floor trailer, and a trailer with a loader incorporated into the unit. We also own a backhoe type loader with a clam bucket and front end loaders. We have 7 semi tractor units to move the tires and equipment at our disposal. We use the services of local trucking firms to move trailers and equipment when the cost can be substantially less than sending our own units.
Our shredding operation utilizes 3 Mac/Saturn shredders that have a combined horsepower of 800 h.p. These units are capable of shredding any and all sizes of tires from bicycle tires through mining tires. Our operation also allows us to be one of the exclusive plants with the capability to process forklift tires (solid rubber tires) instead of having them landfilled. All pre-processing of the large oversized tires that cannot be shredded in their whole form are sheared on site with a LaBounty shear prior to being introduced to the shredders. Any of the tires that contain rims are removed from the shredding line, and the steel is removed with a rim crusher. We have magnets incorporated into the shredding system, whereby the wire that is freed up during the operation is removed from the chip stream, baled, and sold as scrap steel for remelt. All of the equipment we use to reduce the tires into TDF size is stationary, so all of the tires must be brought to our operating facility in Auburndale, Wisconsin for processing. We currently experience the capability to work 24 hours per day, as our shredding operation is located indoors. This may seem like an expensive way to process tires compared to a mobile shredding system, but with the size trailers that we possess, we can usually come close to gross road restrictions with the way the whole tires are loaded into the trailers. By having our facility located in one central location, we maintain much tighter quality controls on our TDF.
Alternative Fuel:
Because of the large capacity of our end users, we are aggressively pursuing markets for other types of material that either can be blended with our TDF or processed alone for fuel use. The alternate materials that we are currently pursuing for a fuel source can cover a broad spectrum. We have experimented with and have received approval on scrap synthetic fibers, semi-liquid latex rubber, scrap post-consumer and post-industrial plastics (all categories), clean wood waste, paper, cardboard, and all forms of scrap rubber. The above named materials have to processed in a manner to conform with the materials handling capability of the end users. The materials are also required to be in a format that insures the end users that they will not expel emissions that exceed the acceptable limits required by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) and/or the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Auburndale Recycling Center, Inc. works very closely with our customers and our end users to ensure that these guidelines are maintained.