Liberty Tire Recycling Releases 2022 Sustainability Report
ESG report highlights progress in environmental stewardship and community engagement
Liberty Tire Recycling, the largest North American provider of tire recycling services, has released its 2022 environmental, social, and governance (ESG) report, announcing a goal of zero waste by 2030 and describing company initiatives to advance sustainable products, accelerate environmental stewardship, and engage people and communities in the locations it serves.
“At Liberty Tire, we recognize that the pursuit of zero waste is not just an aspiration; it is a responsibility we owe to our planet and future generations,” Liberty Tire Recycling CEO Thomas Womble, said.
Liberty Tire Recycling collected more than 195 million tires across the U.S. and Canada in 2022, creating 4.3 billion pounds of rubber available for beneficial end use in a wide range of products, including athletic surfaces, pavement mixes, landscape mulch, playground tiles, hospital flooring and equestrian footings. Today, tire rubber can be found in outdoor pavers, front door welcome mats, gaskets and hoses, or even transformed back into new tires.
Liberty’s recycled rubber is used in construction and civil engineering applications like asphalt pavement, beneath railroad tracks, sound dampening, roadbeds, stormwater retention, and drain fill material.
Liberty also processes tires into tire-derived fuel to power industrial kilns, paper mills, and power plants. Due to its high heat output, tire-derived fuel has the ability to replace other fuels in co-fired boilers in pulp and paper mills, cement kilns, and to power electricity plants. This enables these boilers and kilns to use less overall fuel; therefore, avoiding the generation of additional greenhouse gas emissions. Using end-of- life tires instead of traditional fossil fuels reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 20-30 percent for each ton of coal burned. The company logged avoided emissions: 123,770 metric tons of CO2-e in 2022 through production of tire-derived fuel.
Together, these uses and applications avoided over 750,000 metric tons of CO2e.
“From crumb rubber that is used as a raw material in more technical industrial applications to tire derived fuel or rubberized asphalt, we create safe and useful products that drive a greener tomorrow,” the report said.
Liberty continues to advance its commitment to improve the circularity of tires and in 2022 partnered with Circular Rubber Technologies, a Canadian developer of rubber devulcanization technology that converts end-of-life tires into a material suitable for the use in new tires: a tire-to-tire solution.
During 2023, a devulcanization facility specifically for end-of-life mining tires will be built in Red Deer, Alberta and Liberty Tire will provide the required feedstock. Through this joint effort, Liberty Tire and Circular Rubber Technologies expect to divert thousands of end-of-life mining tires from being buried at the mining sites and employ state-of-the- art devulcanization recycling processes to transform discarded rubber into valuable resources.
“This partnership will foster the development of groundbreaking products that exemplify the principles of circular economy and is planned to be the first of many future facilities to serve the fast growing global demand for sustainable rubber products “ the company said.
“By finding new and innovative uses for end-of-life tires and reducing waste throughout our operations, we are actively working towards minimizing our environmental impact and creating a more circular economy,” CEO Thomas Womble said.
A new program – Super Sack Recycling– initiated in 2022, demonstrates this commitment. Liberty Tire Recycling removed more than 371,000 pounds from its waste stream by recycling super sacks into a composite lumber product.
“As we continue to evaluate all aspects of our operations for more sustainable options, we identified an opportunity to reduce our waste by recycling our super sacks, “ Liberty’s ESG team said in the report.
Historically, super sacks have been cut and sent to the landfill as waste.
In early 2022, Liberty Tire signed an agreement with BestPLUS Lumber, a division of Triumvirate, to remove its supersacks from the waste stream and use them in the manufacture of recycled plastic lumber. In this process, super sacks are compounded, plasticized, blended and then extruded into molds to create a final product.
Among its sustainability efforts, Liberty Tire Recycling decreased its annual OSHA recordables by 58 percent and Lost Time injuries by 85 percent since 2010. The company also reduced fleet mileage by over 161,000 miles through route optimization in the Texas market and converted more than 320,000 square feet to LED lighting which reduced lighting consumption by 67 percent.
Speaking to the accomplishments detailed in the report, CEO Thomas Womble said they “stand as a testament to the dedication and ingenuity of our exceptional employees.”
“From the production floor to the boardroom, every member of our team has played a role in bringing new ideas and implementing effective solutions” he said.
“As we continue to evolve and strive for excellence, we invite all our stakeholders to join us on this transformative journey,” Womble said. “Together, we can build a future where end-of-life tires are no longer considered waste, resources are conserved, and the planet thrives.”
Liberty Tire’s 2022 ESG report is available at https://libertytire.com/
© Scrap Tire News, September 2023
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