Humans are very bad when it comes to single-use items. Almost everything made in the last few decades has been basically single-use. Even items that are supposed to be recycled are not recycled because recycling is actually very hard to do unless you invest heavily in it. Thus, you end up filling our landfills with all the one-time use stuff and even more, as more and more trash accumulates with each passing day.
And manufacturers, for their part, have made that reality almost certain, because none of them really want to invest in recycling infrastructure, while they also want to introduce the worst planned obsolescence design and engineering into their lineups. Why kill today’s cash cow to save someone else’s future? I mean, basic morality and humanity, but those seem few and far between these days.
Enter Pirelli, however, which aims to buck this trend, as the tire group is implementing a new partnership with several companies to not only reduce its own waste footprint, but also recycle as many old and end-of-life tires as possible into new tires, thereby reducing waste, reducing the impact of waste tires on the environment, and conserving resources so we can reduce the need to mine new resources. Pretty smooth.
That is, if the company can pull it off.
The project is called “Tire to Tyre”, which is European English for “tire to tyre” and its aim is to “transform old and scrap tires into recycled materials for new products”, i.e. new tyres. Pirelli is launching the initiative with the help of Pyrum, Synthos and BASF, which will take old tires, scrap tires and excess scrap materials from Pirelli’s plant in Germany, and then ship them to be converted into “secondary raw materials” with the help of Pyrum.
“Within this process, Pyram converts end-of-life and scrap tires through the pyrolysis process – a high-temperature thermal decomposition of the material in the absence of oxygen – into two valuable secondary raw materials: Recovered Carbon Black (RCB) and Tire Pyrolysis Oil (TPO),” the press release states. “The recovered carbon black is upgraded in quality and reintroduced directly into Pirelli’s European production, partly using virgin carbon black. Takes up space.
From there, TPO is sent to BASF, “where it is co-fed with fossil-based feedstock in the production process of chemical products such as butadiene and styrene. A mass balance approach enables the recycled content to be attributed to ISCC Plus-certified bicycle products.” It then goes to Synthos, which “produces ISCC Plus-certified synthetic rubber for high-performance tire applications, which Pirelli reintroduces into its production processes, closing the loop.”
Right now, it’s a small operation, only sourcing tires from all over Germany. To really affect change, in terms of reducing the brand’s environmental impact and emissions, it needs to scale across the globe. But if the program proves the concept, it could potentially inspire others, including Pirelli, to expand the scope and recycling program.
“The European tire-to-tyre project represents the most comprehensive application of this approach to date,” the release says, “demonstrating how end-of-life tires can become a valuable resource within a structured and traceable industrial loop.” Here’s hoping it works.
