Sertego’s plant in Lalín (Pontevedra) manages more than 1,600,000 tyres in 2017.
May 2018 web copy.
2017 has been a big year for Sertego’s plant in Lalín, Pontevedra. This facility, which forms part of the SIGNUS (Collective management system for End-of-Life Tyres) operations network, is the destination for more than 1.5 million used tyres in the four Galician province each year. Its the manager of more than 3.000 ELT generation points and has a staff of 37 employees. Thanks to all their efforts, the plant has managed and revalued a total of 15,610 tonnes of tyres used in 2017, which equals 1,697,062 units. The purpose of Sertego’s plant is to recover all of them, whether material or energy.
More than 11 years of activity
In 2016 Sertego began carrying out this activity with Signus under the provisions of RD 1619/2005 on the management of used tyres. Since then, Sertego Galicia has collected and individually inspected for later classification a total of 18,000,000 tyres, including those regulated by the Royal Decree, as well as those excluded due to their size, diameter, and origin.
From waste to resource
Sertego’s plant is inspired by the circular economy’s basic process: reduce, reuse, repair, and recycle. In the revision phase, all tyres are inspected upon arrival to the plant by personnel specialised in classification, separating those that can be reused. Classification criteria are based on three aspects: the tyre’s condition, its size, and market demand.
Then, tyres that can be reused are inspected more closely to decide which ones pass through a rethreading process, and which ones are sold directly. Tyres that cannot be reused are separated into categories and sent to the final recovery plant. In 2017, more than 1,300 tonnes of tyres were sent for reuse.
