Tyres & Rubber

If you’ll pardon the pun, the good times are continuing to roll for tyre recycling. Indeed, for rubber recycling as a whole. As I said at our committee meeting in Barcelona last May, this has become one of the most dynamic sectors of the recycling industry, gaining unprecedented traction as a result of the ever- increasing possibilities for breathing new life into tyres and other rubber products.

A compound annual growth rate of more than 10% is projected for the global recycled rubber market in the years to 2028. In Europe alone, demand for recycled rubber is expected to increase fivefold over the next 25 years.

Of course, there are challenges encountered daily along the way. I am sure we would all wish for a trading and economic environment that was more supportive of our activities and of our profit margins. Like most other industries around the globe, we are suffering the effects of soaring energy costs and manpower shortages, as well as grappling with the ongoing issue of sourcing reasonably-priced vessel space for shipping our materials.

Specific to our sector, we are also facing severe sanctions on what was once the jewel in the crown of used tyre outlets. During 2022, the European Commission adopted a draft proposal to restrict the sale of tyre-derived infill materials smaller than 5 mm in size in a move that will effectively prevent its use in synthetic pitch surfacing once a six-year transition period has elapsed.

This blow to recycling is grounded in a European Chemicals Agency recommendation to ban all “microplastic” infills owing to possible release to the environment, even though recycling industry experts have contested the data and have championed the far more sensible option of mandatory risk-management measures to limit the dispersion of infill materials. The harsh reality of such a ban could be that more than 50 million tyres go unrecycled or are exported outside the EU for incineration where environmental standards are less stringent, according to Emmanuel Katrakis of the European Recycling Industries’ Confederation.

Thankfully, at our Barcelona meeting last May, Mr Katrakis gave us reasons for greater optimism: policy-makers in Europe had finally understood, he said, that creation of a Circular Economy was not simply a matter of recycling targets but also of creating a demand and of introducing sustainability at the design stage of a product.

Indeed, and as I pointed out at our subsequent meeting in Dubai, this increasingly deep understanding of sustainability – particularly among customers – means there has probably never been a better time to be a tyre/ rubber recycler. Not so many years ago, who could have dreamed that such tyre industry luminaries as Michelin, 

Continental and Bridgestone would be striving for a massive scale-up of their use of our raw materials?

I am delighted to say that our committee meetings have earned an enviable reputation for showcasing latest research and technology developments. In Barcelona, Sonia Megert of Switzerland’s Tyre Recycling Solutions SA highlighted the massive growth potential for recycled content in tyres, suggesting that 10-15% was achievable in tyre treads compared to a current maximum of 5%.

At the same meeting, Robert Weibold of Robert Weibold GmbH in Germany also confirmed that many investors were now taking greater interest in this field, not least because the economics of recycling processes have been altered by the fact that customers are now prepared to pay significantly more for a sustainably-produced tyre.

In Dubai last October, another of the valuable services provided by our meetings was highlighted, namely the opportunity to focus on recycling developments in parts of the world that do not often come under the microscope. So it was that we heard from: Khaled Jamal Chaaroui of EPSCO Global General Trading in Kuwait who updated us on a local tyre recycling plant producing crumb, granules, powder, steel scrap and fibre waste; Abdullah Ahmed Alqurashi of Global Environmental Management Services who explained how Saudi Arabia was tackling the challenge of the 572,000 tonnes of end-of-life tyres generated domestically each year, with his own organization tasked with developing centralized collection hubs and sorting stations; and Zaid Bdour of The Gulf Rubber Company who emphasized the strong business case for mechanical recycling despite the volatility of used tyre prices owing to lucrative exports to Pakistan and India.

If the measure of a vibrant industry is its scope to promote global conversation and innovation, then tyre and rubber recycling has truly arrived.