A system and method for freezing and breaking down tires or other materials is disclosed. The system and method for freezing and breaking down tires includes using a shredder to shred the tires, using a filter to screen the tire shreds, using a water sprayer to rinse the tire shreds, using a freezing tunnel to freeze the tire shreds before they are crushed into tire grains, using a magnet to remove any metallic fibers, filtering out any oversized tire grains for re-freezing and re-crushing, and using a separator to separate out any oversized or undersized pieces before bagging the final tire grains for re-use and recycling.