Tire recycling pioneer eyes Falls site

Local News

Related Photos

LOCAL Sig

June 10, 2010

College Avenue could host first Green Tire Systems’ first U.S. facility

By Joyce Miles Niagara Gazette The Niagara Gazette Thu Jun 10, 2010, 12:35 AM EDT

NIAGARA FALLS — An international tire-recycling operation is considering opening its first U.S. factory here.

Green Tire Systems LLC has operated tire recycling factories in China and Taiwan the past decade. The owners of a patented process for reducing tires to original elements — oil, carbon black, steel and gases — established a North American division this past January and is scoping out factory sites around the United States.

The company is eyeing development of a 60,000-square-foot factory at 1501 College Ave., property currently held by Santarosa Holdings. According to its application for assistance from the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency, Green Tire would invest $18 million in establishment of a facility and create up to 50 jobs within three years.

Green Tire is no ordinary tire recycling operation, according to Managing Director Benjamin Plum. In its Asian factories, the company refined a process for breaking down tires to elements. The process has been tried and failed repeatedly in the United States. Its patented process of pyrolysis recovers oil, carbon and steel and liquefied gases fit for trade and sale in the open market; and one of the gases recovered is used to power the factories.

“Our technology is the first, the only, successful production-scale (technology) in the world,” Plum told the NCIDA board of directors on Wednesday. “We will have the first recycled carbon black, the first ‘green’ carbon black, in the United States.”

Carbon black is used in many everyday products, including ink and plastics.

Green Tire U.S. factories are designed to recycle a minimum of 20,000 tons, or 2 million tires, per year, Plum said.

In New York state alone, about 20 million tires are discarded annually, according to the Associated Press.

Sam Santarosa — who wants to sell 3.5 acres to Green Tire in the hopes it helps leverage additional green industry on College Avenue — says Green Tire can help fill a “void” in the local tire recycling market. Tire recyclers, including him, were forced out of the business after Canada started subsidizing “tipping” fees charged by recyclers, he said. Green Tire does not charge a fee to take tires, according to Plum; its money comes from sale of the recovered commodities.

“This would be a great jumpstart for College Avenue,” Santarosa said. “I have a vote of confidence in these guys. I researched it more than (NCIDA) did.”

Green Tire is fishing for best offers of incentives to open its first U.S. factory; it has been in discussion with economic development agents in Odessa, Texas, while also talking with NCIDA, Plum said.

“It’s not a race between cities, we’re just looking for the right opportunity and the right place” to launch U.S. operations, he hastened to add.

The NCIDA board voted Wednesday to consider Green Tire’s application for a 15-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes plan. It’s also weighing the company’s application for $6.6 million in Recovery Zone Facility Bonds — the entire Niagara County share of a federal stimulus program backing low-interest loans to businesses for job-generating projects. Since Green Tire is looking to borrow $18 million, NCIDA is asking New York state to increase Niagara’s allowable share by dipping into statewide RZFB reserve, according to IDA Assistant Director Lawrence Witul.

Text Only | Photo Reprints

Local News

Falls ceremony honors fallen military, veterans
With the weather fully cooperating, the Niagara Falls Veterans Memorial Commission got a chance to showcase its new creation in Hyde Park Saturday.

May 27, 2012 1 Photo
Man presumed drowned in Niagara River
Emergency crews called off a search in the lower Niagara River for a person who was swept away by the water Saturday afternoon.

May 27, 2012 1 Photo
California tourists robbed at gunpoint in Falls
Falls police are investigating a report of armed robbery from a parking lot in the 100 block of Niagara Street Saturday.

May 27, 2012 1 Photo
Buy local resolution seems familiar to city officials
The city council will vote on a resolution that will encourage the city to do more business with local companies.

Council member Glenn Choolokian will introduce the resolution “relative to promoting city purchasing activities for local businesses in the city of Niagara Falls,” with the support of council Chairman Sam Fruscione and council member Robert Anderson at next week’s meeting.

May 27, 2012
Second suspect pleads in shooting death of NU student
All Cordero Gibson could do as he stood in a Niagara County courtoom on Friday morning was weep.

The 23-year-old Falls man was pleading guilty to his role a in robbery gone bad that had left a Niagara University student dead. Because he didn't fire the shot that killed Brandon Johnson, Gibson dodged the bullet of a murder conviction.

May 27, 2012 1 Photo
SLIDESHOW: Memorial Day events in the Falls Niagara Falls celebrates Memorial Day Weekend activities on Saturday with a parade on Pine Avenue, a memorial service and viewing of the new Veterans Memorial at Hyde Park, a concert series on Old Falls Street and free boat safety inspections by the Niagara County Sheriff Department Marine Division at the City of Niagara Falls Boat Docks on Buffalo Avenue.
May 26, 2012 1 Photo
Legislation protecting Falls air base units moves forward
The effort to protect jobs at the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station got a boost from a committee in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

May 24, 2012 1 Photo
Korean student robbed at gunpoint in Falls
Detectives are investigating the robbery of a 25-year-old woman Wednesday night in front of a motel in the 400 block of Main Street.

May 24, 2012 1 Photo
Davis will not seek Murphy removal
Lawyers for accused killer Matthew “Bones” Davis say their client will not ask to have Niagara County Court Judge Matthew J. Murphy III removed from his case.

May 24, 2012 1 Photo
Labor group laments economic development efforts
Economic development in New York state has become a joke to some in the area. And many of them are demanding changes to a process which spends approximately $3 billion a year.

May 24, 2012
More Local News Headlines

Do you think cigarette sales to non-Native American customers should be taxed on reservations?