With more than 6,000 trucks carrying 75Mt of freight daily on the N3 between Durban and Joburg, Hammarsdale-based radial truck tyre recycler Mathe Group is unlikely to run out of customers soon.
The group produces rubber crumb from scrap tyres, an ingredient used in concrete mixes, and its byproduct, bitumen, is used to resurface important freight routes such as the N3. This provides a steady market at home and abroad.
However, according to CEO Mehran Zarrebini, who also heads the country’s first independent industry body, the Tyre Recycling Industry Association of South Africa (Triasa), many local tyre recyclers have succumbed to economic pressures stemming from load-shedding and the pandemic.
Entry costs are high and the challenges are many. Mathe is one of very few survivors.
Though the factory was shut down during the pandemic, it has been running 24/7 since the beginning of 2022 and Zarrebini says new equipment needed to keep pace with demand is being shipped to South Africa. A multimillion-rand investment in solar power was also recently completed.
Mathe processes about 700 radial truck tyres daily into 25t-30t of rubber crumb. This latest investment will increase output to 45t and grow tyre use to about 1,000 a day.
An environmental impact assessment for a second line that will double production was recently approved and discussions about funding with the Industrial Development Corp are under way, he says.
Entry costs are high and the challenges are many. As a result, Mathe is one of very few survivors
This is expected to create jobs in a poor region that used to be a thriving textile hub during the 1990s.
An expert on sustainability and an advocate for rubber recycling worldwide, Zarrebini says in South Africa, waste tyre statistics are difficult to come by and a national audit is needed urgently. According to data from the Waste Bureau, an average of 13-million tyres weighing 300,000t are sold in South Africa each year. Applying an 18%-20% reduction in weight between new and waste tyres indicates that anywhere between 240,000t and 250,000t of end-of-life tyres are discarded each year in South Africa.
Most are stored in used tyre depots for distribution to recyclers such as Mathe. But in 2018/2019, just 54,460t of waste tyres were reprocessed.
Zarrebini says the road towards efficiently repurposing used tyres, which pose significant health and environmental risks, has been rocky in South Africa. The Recycling & Economic Development Initiative of South Africa was established in 2013 to create an environmentally friendly waste tyre management solution. However, by 2017, it had been suspended after allegations of mismanagement, corruption and financial irregularities.
It is expected to be replaced by the long-overdue section 29 integrated waste tyre plan. As head of Triasa, Zarrebini believes there are huge opportunities for entrepreneurs that will reduce South Africa’s dependency on imported rubber and grow exports.
His journey as an international investor in South Africa did not begin with tyre recycling. Family-owned holding company PFE International bought Van Dyck, South Africa’s oldest carpeting brand, in 2004. It was while sourcing rubber crumb for the manufacture of acoustic underlays and cradles to complement this business that Zarrebini came across Mathe Group, a small start-up based in New Germany with a handful of employees.
In 2010, he bought a 49% stake in the business, replacing equipment and moving it to Hammarsdale. Since then, he has consistently reinvested in the company to boost production and increased employment to 100.
Though a large portion of Mathe’s recycled rubber crumb is exported as is, Zarrebini has also developed additional products using recycled rubber such as rubber flooring and paving for gyms, fitness areas and playgrounds as well as rubber tiles and livestock mats. Rubber crumb is also used to fit artificial turf for sporting facilities.
Exports of these products, especially to the UK, are growing, he says.
When interior décor trends reduced demand for carpeting and the country’s economic challenges increased, Zarrebini sold the Van Dyck factory in Prospecton, moving the machinery used for producing moulded rubber goods to Hammarsdale.
He says that the pandemic not only accelerated the need to move from soft flooring and into the manufacture of sustainable rubber products; it provided time to plan future expansions and to put in place a strategy to consolidate the supply chain that links Mathe Group with the end products that are still manufactured under the Van Dyck brand.
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