Customer Spotlight - Tire Application

Monte Niemi purchased his first SSI shredder back in 1988 for his recycling company in East Bethel, MN. Later moving to a larger facility in Isanti, MN and with the purchase of additional shredders in 1999 and 2016, Niemi’s First State Tire’s business has grown from processing a million tires a year to over three times that.

"What we've learned essentially through the 30 years of running equipment is that you need something that has a good support staff, you have to have something that’s well designed in the first place, you have to have something that’s not going to self-destruct… ​When we came in contact with [the] people out in Oregon that made the SSI shredders they had equipment that made sense and we've been very successful with it,” said Niemi. 

First State Tire recycles tires from passenger vehicles, trucks, and certain recreational vehicles. Tires that are no longer considered road worthy are shredded in a two-pass system that creates a material called, tire derived aggregate or TDA. This engineered aggregate, which is environmentally friendly, is used for civil engineering applications such as roadway bedding, embankment support, stormwater management, and more.

“SSI kind of spoiled me by saying what are you asking for? What do you need? Let’s try and build it… To have a company you can go to and say here’s my bottleneck, here’s what I need to fix… and the company is willing to listen and try to make it happen is the night and day difference between why we’re buying this equipment versus somebody else’s,” said Niemi.

Niemi has the distinction of being one of the oldest continuously operating users of SSI equipment. By his estimate he has shredded over 50 million tires and he has no plans of stopping.

First State Tire's 3rd SSI Shredder - Dual-Shear M120