Michelin wants to make tyres out of recycled plastic bottles
Michelin has figured out a way incorporate recycled plastic bottles into its tyre production.
Michelin has successfully validated the reuse of recycled plastics for its tyres, allowing the French tyre manufacturer to take another step towards its goal of 100 per cent sustainable tyre production.
Together with biochemistry firm Carbios, Michelin will be able to meet its tyres’ technical requirements by using all types of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste including plastic bottles, polyester clothing and trays.
These plastic waste products can be recycled conventionally into products such as fleece jackets, though only a small fraction makes its way through the process, the rest becoming plastic waste.
The new recycling process uses an enzyme capable of depolymerising the PET fibres contained in plastic products. The technical fibre obtained through the process is of the same quality of virgin PET and is particularly suitable for tyres thanks to its breakage resistance, toughness and thermal stability.
Conventional heat-based recycling processes for complex plastics do not achieve the high performance required for pneumatic applications, though Carbios’ new enzyme-based solution is a world first capable of being recycled into car tyres.
“We are very proud to be the first to have produced and tested recycled technical fibres for tyres. These reinforcements were made from coloured bottles and recycled using the enzymatic technology of our partner, Carbios,” said Nicolas Seeboth, director of polymer research at Michelin.
This latest development in recycling technology plays into Michelin’s wider plan to achieve 40 per cent sustainable production by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2050.
It has great potential to withdraw plastic waste from the environment. Every year 1.6 billion tyres are sold requiring 800,000 tonnes of PET fibres per year derived from the oil industry.
When applied to Michelin, this represents nearly 3 billion plastic bottles per year that could be recycled into technical fibres for use in the company’s tyres.