Michelin announced that it has put into place a new plan to ensure that by 2048, all of its tires will be manufactured using 80% sustainable materials and 100% of all tires will be recycled.
Today, the world-wide recovery rate for tires is 70% and the recycling rate is 50%. Michelin tires are currently made using 28% sustainable materials (26% bio-sourced materials like natural rubber, sunflower oil, limonene etc., and 2% recycled materials such as steel or recycled powdered tires). For a sustainable future, Michelin is investing in high technology recycling technologies to be able to increase this content to 80% sustainable materials, through partnerships with several companies with expertise in this area, including Lehigh Technologies and the Biobutterfly project.
Christophe Rahier, Michelin’s director of the high technology materials business line, says that putting these plans into place “could save 33 million oil barrels every year, which is equivalent to the oil consumption of a country like France.”
Rahier noted that commercial truck tires will be later to head down this path, due to the differences between truck tires and those of cars, and the challenges that result from those differences. Still, he did say that Michelin plans for its commercial tires to be part of these plans for sustainability.
