German AZuR (Allianz Zukunft Reifen – German Tyre Future) network has launched a study into end-of-life tyres (ELT) in the country.
AZuR Initiates Review of Tyre Recycling
The study will look at many aspects of the outcomes for ELT from retreading to pyrolysis. The aim is to unravel the mysteries about what really happens to ELT tyres.
In this respect the report will consider the benefits of many uses of ELT and consider their final destinations and possibly the recyclability of products made from recycled tyres.
In some ways this will re-invent the wheel created by SDAB in Sweden a few years back. However, AZuR is looking at a free-market system, which may give a truer picture not just about what is happening in Germany, but also what is happening with imports of ELT materials from neighbouring countries.
In its full press release on this, it in part answers the questions it is asking, for instance, on whether pyrolysis is a more efficient option than rubber matting (which itself could later be pyrolysed).
The study kicks off with an investigation into rubberised asphalt. This element of the study will look at the costs and benefits and how politicians who make decisions about roads can be better informed.
Interestingly, the final part of the study intends looking at the traceability of tyres in Germany (and Europe), and it considers the ongoing claims by some EPR agencies to be recovering more than 100 per cent of tyre arisings. AZuR suspects double counting in places. The study intends determining exactly what the picture is in Germany. Without accurate data any future business plan is doubly speculative.