Metal recycling company GeT Metal Group and its subsidiary GeT Alloys have successfully eliminated virgin fossil fuels from their aluminium melting operations by launching a “pioneering waste-to-energy initiative”.

According to their statement, the project transforms about 150 000 end-of-life tyres into 1.44-million litres of high-quality industrial fuel, tackling South Africa’s severe waste tyre burden while decarbonising heavy industry.

Following the full implementation of this circular economy model, the facility has completely replaced its monthly consumption of 120 000 ℓ of conventional heavy fuel oil with tyre-derived fuel oil.

The fuel is recovered through a controlled, oxygen-free thermal conversion process that alters the chemical structure of the waste tyres. To further close the loop, carbon black, a secondary product of this waste-to-energy process, is captured and used within GeT Alloys’ own aluminium dross recovery operations.

Moreover, the steel wire recovered during the tyre conversion process is also retained and used within the GeT Metal Group. This material is supplied as feedstock to GeT Steel, the group’s steel foundry in Atlantis Industrial, where it is incorporated into the production of steel billets for both the South African and export markets, ensuring that multiple material streams from end-of-life tyres are returned to productive industrial use.

“Before launching this initiative, our facility required massive volumes of conventional furnace oil to sustain our melting operations. By engineering a solution that transforms a problematic waste stream into a valuable manufacturing input, we have eliminated the use of virgin fossil fuels in our primary furnaces,” explains GeT Metal Group director Andrew Bishop.

He adds that this shows that heavy industry can successfully decouple production from fossil fuels through smart engineering.

By displacing 1.44-million litres of conventional heavy fuel oil every year, the initiative delivers an estimated greenhouse-gas (GHG) saving of 720 t of CO2 equivalent.

This is calculated using internationally recognised emission factors consistent with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the GHG Protocol methodologies. These savings represent the avoidance of heavy upstream emissions linked to crude oil extraction, refining and fuel transportation.

The initiative also delivers a major boost to local environmental management by each month diverting around 12 500 waste tyres from landfills, tyre waste stockpiles and unmanaged dump sites. This directly supports South Africa’s extended producer responsibility regulations by establishing a stable, high- volume market for end-of-life rubber, promoting beneficiation and strengthening the broader metal packaging value chain.

“Building this sustainable value chain from collection to processing has allowed us to create 32 direct jobs across the recycling and manufacturing sectors,” adds GeT Metal Group director Ebrahim Khan.