Manufacturers play a pivotal role in shaping a sustainable and environmentally friendly future. By reducing their reliance on new raw materials and embracing circularity in product design, they can make a significant contribution to minimizing waste and conserving natural resources.
Incorporating circular materials into tyre manufacturing is essential for promoting material reuse and recycling, as well as reducing energy use and carbon emissions. The tyre-to-tyre model, which involves reusing old tyre materials to make new tyres, is a prime example of closing the material loop in tyre production. Technologies for recovering materials from end-of-life tyres (ELTs) as alternatives to virgin fossil fuels-based raw materials further contribute to increasing circularity.
The challenge of tyre recycling is complex, but there are several ways in which tyre redesign can incorporate more circularity in the long run.
Materials and Manufacturing
Tyres are primarily made of rubber composites, which makes recycling ELTs a challenging process. To increase sustainability, suppliers can opt for recycled secondary materials such as recovered Carbon Black (rCB) and Recovered Steel, as well as bio-based ingredients like rubber from dandelions and fillers made from rapeseed oil to replace fossil-fuel-based raw materials. The choice of materials in the design stage is crucial for achieving circularity, as specific rubber polymer types can simplify disassembly before recycling.
Investing in Modular Design
Circular design can lead to the production of standard modular components, making it easier to separate components for later reuse and recycling. This paves the way for new innovative tyre designs that produce modular individual components for simpler disassembly, repair, and reuse, ultimately lessening the use of new raw materials to build cars.
Recycling and Reuse
The recycling process needs to be improved to allow for more efficient separation of materials and to increase the demand for recycling and reuse in new tyre manufacturing. Circular design practices can enable manufacturers to take responsibility for their products’ entire lifecycle as stipulated by regional Extended Producer Responsibility regulations.
Governments can incentivise circularity by passing regulations that support industries, such as the EU’s Extended Producer Responsibility and Right to Repair policies.
Designing for Recycling
Integrating recycling into tyre design will help increase the use of circular, sustainable raw materials in the automotive industry, leading to increased innovation, business opportunities, supply security, and industry cost savings.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Automotive World Ltd. If you would like to contribute a Comment article, please contact [email protected].
Krzysztof Wróblewski is Chief Executive of Contec.
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