SIGNUS enters the new year by maintaining the cost of managing used tyres and with the appointment of Maria Paz Robina, General Director of Michelin as the new president of the Entity for the next two years
SIGNUS held a breakfast with journalists to share the data and milestones of the past year and outline the path for this year 2024. Among the topics discussed, Julián Madruga, director of Relations with Member Companies, presented the main data management of 2023, although still to be consolidated data before being to the autonomous communities and the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, as required by the Royal Decree, highlighting the good work carried out by the entire team.
Last year, SIGNUS had to increase the management fees caused by the increase in transportation and treatment costs for each ton of tyres managed, which caused serious difficulties for all the processing plants. For this fiscal year 2024, all the necessary adjustments have been made to maintain the rates that were applied in 2023.
SIGNUS announced that the management data in 2023 was slightly lower in terms of market placement compared to previous years and in terms of slightly higher collection and management quantities, above 200,000 tons.
Last September, the European Union approved the restriction on the use of intentionally added microplastics, which includes the main destination of recycled rubber, as filler for artificial grass fields. There is an eight-year delay in implementation allowing work on the development of new uses and applications to which to allocate the nearly 60,000 tons of tyres normally destined for this application. Among these developments, the use of recycled rubber as acoustic and thermal insulation and its use in thermoplastics stands out. In addition to its incorporation in asphalt mixtures and as part of the aggregate, this is one of the recycling applications that has the greatest prospects, especially for its sound-reducing capacity, the main commitment of cities seeking ways to reduce noise pollution.
Pyrolysis has also been incorporated as an activity to keep tyre components out of use in the Circular Economy cycle. At this time, end-of-life tyres are already being supplied to two active plants.
At the meeting, Román Martín, director of Institutional Relations, made reference to the approval of the new Royal Decree on the management of ELT, scheduled for the coming months, highlighting the main modifications: administrative simplification, with a single authorisation model for the entire nation; the incorporation of the concept of ecomodulation when establishing management costs; the definition of the financial guarantee regime applicable to extended producer responsibility (EPR) systems and information obligations; the specification of the obligations of tyre producers, EPR systems and ELT generators and managers; and the obligation of an authorised representatives for producers who are established in another member state or third countries and who market tyres in Spain.
Another of the topics discussed at the meeting was the result of the public competitions for the selection of managers for collection and recovery services, which SIGNUS has carried out for the next three years and next year respectively.
Finally, reference was made to the participation of SIGNUS in the next edition of Madrid Design Festival -from February 14 to 25- in which it will have a space created in 3D printing with tyre powder, and in which different designs made from rubber from recycled tyres in different fields.
