End-of-life tyres at Raadi

Image: Tarmo Haud

Certainly one of the biggest environmental actions in 2020 was the removal and final treatment of 13,135 tonnes of end-of-life tyres that had been lying around for a long time at the old Raadi airfield.

Ragn-Sells commenced the work in July 2020, when the first diesel-powered shredder was brought to the site, followed by a second one. The end-of-life tyres were shredded on site, loaded into closed trailers, and transported to Torma and the Port of Sillamäe. In Torma, tyre chips were placed in the drainage layer of the new landfill (5,957 tonnes), and from the Port of Sillamäe, they were transported by ship to cement plants in Finland for use as alternative fuel (6,657 tonnes). In addition, 521 tonnes of tyre wire was separated and recycled.

The work ended at Raadi on 18 December, and the last batch of tyre chips were transported from Sillamäe to Finland in February 2021.

With whom?

At the end of 2019, the Ministry of the Environment decided that all tyres stored at Raadi should be sent for final treatment. The EIC was commissioned by the Ministry to lead the project, and the work was carried out by AS Ragn-Sells, which was successful in the public procurement.

The role of the EIC

In addition to procuring a contractor and project management, we procured a monitoring service to check the site activities and verify weighings.