Bridgestone Americas will invest an additional $190 million to renovate and expand its Costa Rican tyre manufacturing operations. The newly announced funds extend the existing plan to invest $60 million in Belén de Heredia by 2026. Bridgestone will increase its production capacity by 36 per cent, adding more than 160 new permanent jobs.
SPR Group recently set up a new tyre recycling plant in San José, Costa Rica via its affiliate in Mexico.
The new facility, located in the capital city of Costa Rica, has been designed to afford the use of the secondary fast-rotation granulator getting an input up to 5 tonnes per hour. This technological solution developed by SPR Group makes it possible to obtain a granulometry lower than 35 mm ready to be used as Alternative Fuel in the industry.
The tyre market in Costa Rica is forecast to grow during the next few year due to “expanding vehicle fleet and upcoming government reforms to boost growth in construction and transportation sector”, according to the “Costa Rica Tyre Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2020” report published by TechSci.
In response to claimed strong demand on the part of manufacturers and distributors, the organiser of the Costa Rica-based Tyrexpo2015 exhibition established a series of sponsorship levels geared exclusively toward manufacturers participating in the event. The organiser, Enventions International LLC, says Pirelli Tire has signed on as Tyrexpo2015’s first diamond-level manufacturer/sponsor. The other two manufacturer/sponsorship levels are Emerald and Sapphire.
In 2007, the Central American nation of Costa Rica set itself the goal of becoming the world’s first carbon neutral country, a feat it aimed to achieve by 2021. Bridgestone de Costa Rica (BSCR) has supported this ambition and set itself the goal of achieving C-Neutral certification by the Costa Rican government. It has worked towards this via a number of projects, including the installation of LED lights and solar lamps, switching to greener chemical products and implementing a carpooling programme. Last year it introduced nitrogen vulcanisation, replacing less energy-efficient hot water. As a result of these and other efforts, CO2 emissions at BSCR sank by 923 tons year-on-year in 2013, a 4.14 per cent reduction.
Bridgestone