The velvet rope parts, the crowd presses in. Today, the master cutter will make his move. Somewhere behind us, Inspector Clouseau barges forward, notebook at the ready.

“Zis is ze original cutting of ze Pink Panther, yes? I must investigate ze el sceno de crimo!”

The guard frowns. The cover is lifted… and instead of a glittering stone, a black tire rests on the bench.

Clouseau staggers. “A tire? Sacré bleu! How can zis be worth anything? Zis is not a diamond, zis is a crime!” He is gently escorted back to the rope, still muttering, “I suspect everyone!”

The cutter steadies his hand. The blade lowers. And suddenly the comedy drops away. To Clouseau, it must be diamond cutting — what else could conjure such value from a lump of carbon? But the truth is stranger, and more modern. This isn’t gemcraft. It’s pyrolysis: Ecolomondo’s Thermal Decomposition Process, a precise sequence of heat, pressure, and rotation that breaks down a tire into its elemental valuables — recovered carbon black, oil, steel, and syngas.

Clouseau blinks, baffled. “Pyro… lysis? Zis is a new kind of crime, yes?” The crowd chuckles. But the engineers press on. What looks to him like waste rubber is, in fact, the rough carbon stone of our age — and Ecolomondo’s process is the jeweler’s hand that knows exactly where to cut.

The Cut: Thermal Decomposition as Craft

Pyrolysis is often described as brute fire. At Ecolomondo, it’s closer to a jeweler’s touch — a sequence of precise cuts and coolings that separate value from waste. Their proprietary Thermal Decomposition Process (TDP) is the loupe, the steady hand, and the polishing cloth all in one. Over 25 years of refinement, they’ve mastered the flaws that plague lesser practitioners: reactor rotation, humidity removal, hydrocarbon cleansing, emissions control. Each advance is another facet revealed.

The results sparkle: recovered Carbon Black (rCB), tire pyrolysis oil, clean steel, and syngas. Each is a polished stone ready for market. And the numbers glitter too: TDP’s recovered carbon reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 90% compared to virgin black. The Hawkesbury cutting house alone will prevent 15,000 tons of CO₂ each year; the Shamrock facility in Texas is expected to carve out another 45,000 tons annually.

From the back of the hall, Clouseau reappears with a fire extinguisher.
“Pyro-lysis? Zis sounds like ze arson! Stand back, I will put out zis fire before it starts!”
The engineers ignore him. The tire splits, and value streams off in four directions.

Hawkesbury: The First Brilliant Cut

In the second quarter of 2025, Ecolomondo brought a new set of tools onto the bench — a milling line designed to process 2,200 pounds of rCB per hour, grinding the black diamond into the 10–15 micron distribution prized by buyers. The polish mattered. By July, their main off-take client had tested the cut, approved the luster, and placed the first order: 23 metric tons, trucked away like a velvet box leaving the jeweler’s door.

The orders kept coming — five more truckloads in quick succession, each one a vote of confidence that Ecolomondo’s rCB wasn’t just a laboratory gem but market-ready brilliance. Another U.S. buyer recently signed off on quality, preparing to bring its own bulk orders into the mix. With the full line of conveyors, pelletizers, dryers, and bagging systems now commissioned, Hawkesbury has become more than a plant. It’s a cutting house for carbon.

Once fully operational, Hawkesbury is expected to process 1.3 to 1.5 million scrap tires per year, yielding:

• 4,000–4,500 MT of rCB
• 5,000–5,400 MT of pyrolysis oil
• 2,000–2,250 MT of steel
• 1,200–1,350 MT of process gas

Valuation: The Hardest Cut

Every diamond’s value depends on more than its brilliance — it depends on the appraiser’s ledger, the buyer’s confidence, and the deftness of the cut. For Ecolomondo, that cut is financial as much as technological.

In the second quarter of 2025, Hawkesbury produced revenues of $395,149 — a 212% increase year-over-year. But operating losses ran to $1,042,497, and the reported quarterly profit of $1.45 million came not from sales, but from revalued debt agreements with Export Development Canada. Like a jeweler polishing flaws from the stone, Ecolomondo worked its financing, postponing and capitalizing interest on loans totaling more than $40 million.

The company also raised $1.5 million in two private placements — modest facets in a much larger stone. And it anticipates tapping another $2 million over the next 12 months for working capital and equipment.

Clouseau pops up again, peering at the balance sheet. “We know nothing. You are now up to speed,” he declares triumphantly, before adding, “Especially ze accountants.”

The crowd chuckles, but the point stands: cutting carbon is only half the challenge. Cutting the numbers cleanly is the other.

Cutting for the World: Expansion Plans

The jeweler’s bench is widening. In Europe, Ecolomondo has struck a joint venture with ARESOL to build four TDP facilities, starting in Valencia, Spain. Think of it as opening a new diamond bourse in the EU — local partners, local feedstock, a familiar trade floor.

In North America, the centerpiece stone is Shamrock, Texas. Construction begins in the third quarter of 2025, and when the lights come on, Shamrock will be one of the largest tire-pyrolysis cutting houses in North America. Six reactors, US$93 million invested, capable of processing five million tires every year. From that mountain of rubber, Shamrock will carve out:

• 15,000 MT of recovered Carbon Black (rCB)
• 18,000 MT of pyrolysis oil
• 7,500 MT of clean steel
• 4,500 MT of syngas

Together, Hawkesbury and Shamrock will turn nearly six million discarded tires per year from rough black piles into cut and polished commodities — each product a facet in the growing diamond of the circular economy.

The Value Proposition: Carats in the Circular Economy

Every jeweler knows the 4Cs — cut, color, clarity, carat. Ecolomondo’s proposition has its own set:

• Cut: TDP slices waste into rCB, oil, steel, and syngas with surgical precision.
• Clarity: Emissions reduced, hydrocarbons removed, certifications secured.
• Color: A deep black carbon that rivals virgin product and wins repeat orders.
• Carat: Scale. Hawkesbury plus Shamrock, with Europe next.

Add it up, and Ecolomondo is setting not just stones but standards: addressing the waste crisis, lowering emissions, feeding the circular economy, and proving that scrap tires are uncut diamonds waiting for the wheel.

Once, diamonds were hidden in riverbeds, waiting for a skilled hand to reveal their light. Today, the hidden stones are piled behind garages and landfills, stacked in black heaps of discarded rubber. Ecolomondo sees what others miss: that each end-of-life tire is really the beginning of value. And with every precise cut of its TDP, it shows the world how carbon, polished with care, can shine again.

From the back, Clouseau sighs: “It’s all part of life’s rich pageant, you know.”

September 8, 2025 | Jim Lane