A Western Australian family-owned company has marked its official opening event by calling for measures to encourage greater recycling of a valuable resource.
CTS Tyre Recycling was officially opened today at Neerabup in Perth’s northern suburbs by WA Environment Minister Matt Swinbourn.
The $50+ million facility is the only plant in Australia that can handle (on a single site) any size of tyre, including the massive tyres used on mining haul trucks. The state-of-the-art process also recycles conveyer belt rubber and other materials, such as marine fenders and industrial rubber hosing, that would otherwise be sent to landfill.
The company began producing rubber crumb and recycled steel from end-of-life tyres early in 2025. More recently, it has added a remanufacturing capability under the brand Throughcycle Rubber that is transforming the rubber crumb into a range of valuable recycled products, all Made in WA, including soft-fall flooring, acoustic underlay and transport matting.
The rubber crumb is also being used in road resurfacing and can be moulded into a wide range of consumer items and shapes, including as paving bricks, speed humps and car park wheel stops. Of note, products such as transport and logistics matting can be taken back and reprocessed making them infinitely recyclable.
Managing director Leigh Cometti acknowledged the support for the facility by the federal and state governments through the jointly-funded Recycling Modernisation Fund, which contributed two grants totalling $8 million.
He also called for further support mechanisms to address genuine concerns about the viability of the tyre recycling industry in Western Australia.
“There are fears that at least one facility such as ours could close down due to a lack of support for improved tyre recycling regulation, and that would be a gigantic backwards step for environmental and circular economy outcomes in WA,” said Mr Cometti.
The Commonwealth and WA governments are co-funding the Recycling Modernisation Fund (RMF) with $70 million of grants in WA.
“More than $22 million has been provided specifically for end-of-life tyre (EOLT) recycling projects, including the $8 million we received to support our overall investment, to date, of more than $51 million,” he said.
“There has been significant investment by us and other recyclers, supported by those government grants, in world-leading recycling facilities in Perth and the Pilbara for recovery of all tyre categories.
“However, the supply required to make these facilities viable in the longer-term is being severely constrained by the current situation that allows landfill disposal and stockpiling in the regions and on mine sites across the state.”
There is already an existing ban on sending tyres to landfill in the metropolitan area.
“Given the significant investment in the tyre recycling plants recently established in WA, supported by federal and state taxpayer grants, we believe there is a clear imperative for action that will result in that ban being extended to regional areas, farms and mine sites,” said Mr Cometti.
“Further, we suggest that it is abundantly clear that reviewing and changing licence renewals under current State Agreements is an opportunity to make a real difference by progressively ending the practice by mining companies of burial or long-term storage of end-of-life tyres and conveyer belts.
“Clearly, if a mining tyre or conveyer belt is being delivered to a mine site, that same transport method could return a matching end of life product, especially given that the backload transport charge has already been included in the delivery cost of new product.”
A recent report from the Productivity Commission suggested a ban would impose costs on mining companies and result in environmental impacts associated with transporting tyres from remote mines to recycling facilities (although it conceded there may be reverse logistics opportunities in some instances).
The logical view is that all goods are transported to site and therefore it is not unreasonable or any way impractical to remove waste products for recycling.
Tyre recyclers also dispute the report’s claim that there is an absence of sufficiently developed end markets for recovered materials and products in Australia that meant that wider economic and environmental benefits of efforts to increase collecting tyres cannot be realised at this time.
“At CTS Tyre Recycling we have invested in developing our own downstream markets for the reuse and remanufacture of the commodities that we have extracted from used tyres.
Given sufficient market capacity exists to process tyres of all sizes within WA, we would strongly suggest that even the largest mining companies would be hard-pressed to push back on such changes given the increasing focus on the need for them to operate under social licence.
In addition to reducing landfill, recycling and remanufacturing will reduce the need for procurement and planting further virgin rubber product, a key element of moves towards a sustainable circular economy.