FCS3

Letter to CalRecycle Proposal Reviewers FCS-DRR18113 February 18, 2019

from 11 specialized material testing facilities that performed tests in the previous two FCS Contracts and the previous Tire Derived Product Business Assistance Programs. Eleven manufacturing and material specialists have been identified to provide specialized technical assistance and advice related to rubber, plastic and other aggregate raw materials, quality assurance and control, engineering, process optimization and product development. However, the manufacturers that commit to the FCS process may identify other experts that would better meet their needs as service providers. The intent will be through the FCS team and contract activities to demonstrate to the manufacturer that they receive value added services and product benefits. The candidate manufacturers will provide an opportunity to expand the use of recycled tire rubber by committing to changing the design and/or specifications of an existing or new product by replacing one or more raw materials with a minimum of five percent tire rubber. Also, the manufacturers will need to provide financial and personnel resources, equipment, production runs, some testing and managerial time to develop a product within the timeline of FCS. We are excited by the opportunity, if selected, to continue our team’s long-standing partnership with CalRecycle in scrap tire market development. We believe the following points set our proposal apart: • Drawing on our team’s technical knowledge and hands-on industry experience, we can offer practical insights to overcome anticipated challenges and deliver tangible results; • Our ability to gain the trust of participating TDM feedstock suppliers and product manufacturers is well proven, and we will make ever attempt to leverage our established industry relationships to hit the ground running and to maximize project outcomes; • Our team and CalRecycle have learned it is important to be nimble during the contract to keep making progress. Market development of commercial products is a complex process with many uncertainties and neither our team nor CalRecycle has complete control of the development process nor the manufacturing results; • We are dedicated to ongoing, regular communication with participating manufacturers, service providers and CalRecycle, and we are enthusiastically tenacious in encouraging and helping tire-derived product manufacturers to make progress towards their feedstock conversion goals. In our experience this is the single most important key to feedstock conversion success. Following is the information specifically required by the RFP to be included in this cover letter: