Rubber & Plastics News reports that Black Bear, a Dutch tire recycling company, has raised $12.8 million to refine its recovered carbon black (rCB) technology and start the global roll out of its cradle-to-cradle system. Black Bear has formed a new consortium with four partners: ING Group, investment firms 5square and Social Impact Ventures, and the Thai conglomerate SCG.
Black Bear’s industrial-scale prototype plant is located in Nederweert, Netherlands. It is capable of processing 1 million waste tires annually, thereby producing 5,000 metric tons each of rCB and bio-fuel, 3,000 tons of steel and one megawatt hour of green electricity per year. The new partnership aims to build up to 1,000 such plants worldwide.