5 ECO-FRIENDLY PEOPLE OF INTEREST
The
TIRE RECYCLER
BY Camille S. Yates
Photos by Ed Drondoski
Jack Wilson greets me, covered in black tire dust,
48
with a smile on his face. “I was just checking a
piece of equipment,” he says. What started out
in 1988 as a small tire recycling business with
eight employees in a 6,500 square foot facility on
10 acres of land, has now grown into the 6th largest tire
recycling company in the United States.
Wilson’s company, Florida Tire Recycling, Inc. still
has that small-town, family-owned quality, but it now
runs out of 75,000 square feet of buildings with 80 employees
on 32 acres of land in western St. Lucie County.
“I like the technical end of this business,” explains
Wilson. “My talent is designing new production lines.”
Wilson’s engineering savvy has benefited Florida tremendously,
because his business prevents more than 6
million tires from going into landfills each year.
“It has been challenging over the last 20 years,
creating this industry — to not only figure out how to
process the tires, but to also try to create a commodity
for the recycled products,” Wilson explains. “Technology
has been slow. Now, we are seeing a change in the
industry. People are realizing the benefits of the end
products. That is exciting to me.”
Wilson has made tire recycling so efficient, that he
can now recycle all tire parts including the steel, rubber
and fiber. Tire shredding machines separate the steel
from the tire. Florida Tire Recycling then sends the
steel right back to a steel foundry where other products
are made from it. The company can also separate the
polyester/nylon tire fiber so that it is clean enough to
be used for other industrial materials.
In 2008, Anthony Cialone joined Florida Tire Recycling
to enhance the company’s rubber grinding
process. “Tony is an expert in cryogenic fine grinding
of rubber and other materials,” explains Wilson. “Using
the cryogenic process, we freeze the tires so that the
rubber becomes a fine powder.”
Once the rubber is turned into power, it is sent to
multiple companies who use it for fuel or to put into
asphalt. It is also used to make rubber mats, landscaping
products, roofing materials, plastics, and tires,
among many other things.
Wilson’s daughter, Jacqueline, along with Cialone,
will be focusing on letting the public know that Florida
Tire Recycling’s services are positive for business,
positive for the environment, and positive for the
community. And, Wilson is proud to say, “This has all
been done without public subsidies. I’ve reinvested my
money into the company to make a positive impact
for Florida.”
LIVING GREEN