FREEE Recycle manages scrap tyre waste by repurposing them as pavers, tiles, mats and more
Photo: Freee Recycle Ltd / Facebook
As the world talks about circular economy, the second largest and second most populous continent Africa is also paving its way towards circularity through different initiatives taken by different stakeholders in various countries. One such case is an organisation named FREEE Recycle located in Nigeria, one of Africa’s most populous countries.
The recycling organisation was incorporated in Nigeria in 2018. It is a good case study from the continent, wherein scrap tyres are recycled for waste management in Nigeria. Delhi-based think tank Centre for Science and Environment interacted with Ifedolapo Runsewe, managing director at FREEE Recycle Ltd to understand the process of sourcing, processing and cost economics related to operation of the facility.
FREEE Recycle has two waste tyre sourcing model or strategies:
1. Purchase of waste tyres from registered aggregators / vendors, who source waste tyres from vulcanisers or pick them up from landfills. The model has created a business around the collection value chain, whereby the vulcanisers have additional source of income and the suppliers and aggregators have a new source of revenue.
2. Sourcing of waste tyres through FREEE’s Extended Consumer Responsibility (ECR) initiative. This programme encourages corporate organisations that are consumers of tyres through the use of their official vehicles, such as pool cars, executive cars, trucks, etc to responsibly see to end of life of the waste tyres they generate. The organisations channel the waste tyres to FREEE to be recycled into eco-friendly products and thus ensure those tyres are responsibly and sustainably treated.
FREEE Recycle currently processes and recycles approximately 360,000 tyres per year to extract crumb rubber, fibres, and metals. Rubber pavers, rubber tiles, rubber mats, marine fenders, door mats, flip-flops, keyholders, yoga mats, kerbs, insulation rolls and other products are made from crumb rubber.
Financial model
On average, FREEE Recycle purchases waste tyres for around 20 cents per tyre as a starting consideration. To complete the processing, a majority of the cost goes into taking care of powering the facility and equipment, purchasing consumables, staff cost and other overheads.
FREEE generally carries out periodic maintenance on equipment at given intervals. In situations where there are mechanical faults or breakdowns, they have to rely on importing spare parts. However, this is slowly changing as there are more local original equipment manufacturers that can produce spare parts to meet specific requirements.
As part of FREEE Recycles’ expansion plan, the organisation is going to venture into other waste and recyclables such as steel, PET bottles, paper, bottles, etc. They have just commenced one steel smelting line, where scrap metal is recycled, including extracted metal from the waste tyres into ingots.
Power costs, inflation and exchange rate have been major limitations and challenges that FREEE Recycle is facing during its operations.
More such organisations are the need of the hour if the world has to move from a linear to a circular economy. As informed to CSE by the COO of the organisation, FREEE at present is employing more than 350 staff, including full time, direct or indirect agents etc.
Through its operation till now, FREEE has prevented more than 8,100 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, with its operations aligned with about 12 United Nations-mandated Sustainable Development Goals.
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