The initial cleaning stage begins with shredding the rubber using a slab cutter to roughly 100–150 mm. The shredded material is then passed through an optional vibrating screen to remove solid contaminants such as soil, sand, and wood chips. Next, the shreds are placed into blending tank-1, then transferred via a bucket elevator or screw conveyor to a prebreaker machine to produce shreds of 40–70 mm before entering blending tank-2. The output is then transferred to a hammermill for finer shredding to around 20–50 mm.