Lafarge Cement is to increase its tyre burning at its Cauldon plant by over 50 per cent to a maximum of 900 tyres per hour after it has been granted permission. Works manager Ian Mycock commented: “ We have used chipped used tyres here as a fuel for over 10 years. In that time we have used over 23 million tyres. Laid out end-to-end, they would stretch from Cauldon to Darwin, Australia.”
An automated system feeds tyres into the preheater tower at 6.5t/h, where they are burned at 900˚ C. This results in complete combustion of the tyres, reducing the risk of environmental pollution. Ian Mycock added: “It’s a win-win situation: by burning tyres oxides of nitrogen emissions are reduced by up to 20 per cent compared to coal, we have a reduced production cost, and there is less use of fossil fuels.”
Lafarge uses tyres as a fuel not only at Cauldon, but also at its Hope (Derbyshire), Westbury (Wiltshire) and Dumbarton (Scotland) plants.
