John L. Threshie Jr
1771 Post Road East
Westport, CT 06880

Environment Committee

February 19, 2016

Testimony Supporting HB 5149

Good morning Senator Kennedy, Representative Albis, Senator Chapin, Representative Shaban, and distinguished members of the Environment Committee.  The company I represent, The Tirex Corporation, supports the passing off Bill HB 5149. We support the passing of Bill 5149 because we offer an alternative to burning tires with a new tire recycling technology which produces a higher value added recycled crumb rubber from an economically viable, green process, called the TCS technology. The TCS technology is U.S. patented with a proprietary cold air process that freezes the rubber, as opposed to the competitions significantly more costly liquid nitrogen process, then it breaks the rubber apart and cleanly separates the intact marketable steel and fiber strands and produces a particle free recycled cryo crumb rubber, with no fluff or waste. This lower cost, patented, proprietary process will enable us to market a much more competitively priced high end cryo crumb especially suited for the recent surge in its application in new tire production and high tech rubber and plastic products.
 
Most scrap tires are burned in cement kilns throughout the U.S. It’s called Tire Derived Fuel (TDF). TDF emissions are a health and environmental concern even though it is allowed in most States. In Connecticut they shut down the TDF facility in Sterling, CT, over two years ago, which was burning over 8 million tires a year. They ship those tires to Maine now to be burned. The Sterling facility is looking for a new green technology. We could put the TCS technology in the Sterling facility and recycle Connecticut’s scrap tires into a viable commodity. This TCS facility would not only bring a new viable business to Connecticut and create new jobs, it would become a showcase to the world that Connecticut is legally eliminating a pollutant to our atmosphere and replacing it with a state of the art, green, economically viable technology which produces value added recycled rubber for the vast rubber and plastic industries.
In closing, I believe we have an excellent opportunity here to show precedence and demonstrate that we can take steps to improve and preserve our environment with this Bill and make economic sense with new, green technology here in Connecticut while the evolution of eco/geo political, business and environmental opportunities expand exponentially throughout the world. 
Thank you for your time and consideration.