Background A major part of the around 2 700 000 used tyres generated in Europe in 2002 was disposed of in landfills – just 47% were re-used, retreated or recycled (OECD). Of the remainder, about a half was landfilled while the rest was burned for energy recovery. However, the EU Landfill Directive banned the landfilling of whole tyres in 2003, and two years later shredded tyres were also banned from landfilling. In addition, the EU End-of-Life Vehicle Directive requires original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to ensure that vehicles are 95% recyclable by 2015. A further issue addressed by the project is the significant amount of waste sawdust and wood shavings that is generated by Europe’s timber processing industry, along with the Europe-wide efforts to achieve higher recycling rates for various packaging materials, including wood. Objectives The Tyre/Wood Block project’s main objective was to demonstrate the environmental and competitive benefits of a pallet block that re-uses tyre-derived waste materials in combination with sawmilling residues and woodchip from discarded pallets. A small-scale pilot process to determine the system’s basic design parameters would be followed by a full-scale demonstration system. It was expected to put 300 000 pallets into service during the project’s implementation. More than 5 000 tonnes of recycled tyre-derived waste were planned to be incorporated, as well as a significantly greater tonnage of timber residues. A full business analysis was carried out from both an environmental and cost-benefit perspective. Results The Tyre/Wood Block project demonstrated at a pilot plant in Italy the competitive and environmental benefits of pallet blocks manufactured from waste tyre and wood material. The main phase of the project was the construction and commissioning of a full-scale demonstration facility at Lissarda, County Cork, Ireland. The blocks of waste wood only and blocks of tyre wood underwent rigorous lab and market testing, and during the project around 2 000 m3 of pallet blocks were produced containing varying levels of tyre textile waste. The optimum content of tyre textile waste was found to be 5%. E-pal certification was obtained for the waste wood only and the 5% textile/wood composite blocks. A Life Cycle Assessment of the process was carried out which concluded that the composite waste wood/tyre blocks were superior to virgin wood blocks. The project demonstrated a high degree of innovation. The beneficiary worked with subcontractor Imal to develop the capacity to produce commercially viable pallet blocks from waste wood and tyre derived waste. It accomplished this outcome by developing an extrusion process to produce the blocks in a continuous mode rather than with the usual moulding process. The project organisers estimate that the project will add around €2 million per annum to the local economy. Local transport companies will continue to benefit from transporting the raw material and the finished product. The project's demonstrator facility provides a local market for waste wood and tyre materials; in the long term it is hoped that this will be replicated to benefit other localities. It is also hoped that once it is in full production, Eirebloc (the company that was set up to run this facility and the Clean Wood project) will employ 30 people. It will have a capacity to produce 50 000m3 (or 33 000 tonnes) per annum, increasing to 100 000m3 (or 65 000 tonnes) when more lines are added. The economic downturn, however, has affected the initial projections for the plant, and there is currently an over capacity for pallet block production in Europe. The price of a pallet block has also fallen by 40% since the start of the project. Nevertheless, the project team remain confident that the plant will pay back the initial investment over the next 10 years (though this is nearly twice the foreseen payback period). Among the dissemination deliverables, the project produced a 10-minute DVD, a case study and a conference paper. Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report(see "Read more" section).