Michelin "Will Produce 100% Sustainable Tires by 2050"

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki-min Lee] Michelin announced on the 25th that it will produce 100% sustainable tires by 2050 using waste, natural materials, and more.

In 2017, Michelin introduced the concepts of Airless, Connected, and Rechargeable and unveiled the perfectly sustainable future tire, the 'VISION Concept Tire.' Currently, about 30% of the materials used in tires manufactured by the Michelin Group are made from natural, recycled, or other sustainable sources.

Michelin's seven global research and development (R&D) centers, with over 6,000 employees across 350 fields, are accelerating the completion of material technologies. Additionally, Michelin is partnering with innovative companies and startups to utilize waste as new materials. For example, biological waste such as waste wood, rice husks, leaves, and corn stalks have been used as tire materials, with 4.2 million tons of wood chips incorporated into Michelin tires.

Moreover, Michelin formed a partnership last November with Pyrowave, a Canadian company specializing in plastic recycling and electrification of chemical processes, enabling the production of styrene from yogurt bottles, food containers, insulation panels, and more. Styrene is an important substance used not only in polystyrene but also in synthetic rubber production for tires and various other consumer goods.

Michelin is also collaborating with French startup Cavios, which decomposes plastic waste into pure raw materials, using some of the recovered plastics as polyester yarn needed for tire manufacturing. Michelin expects that potentially 4 billion plastic bottles could be recycled annually into Michelin tires.

This February, Michelin plans to build the world's first tire recycling plant in collaboration with Enviro, a Swedish company that developed patented technology to recover carbon black, oil, iron, and gases from waste tires.

Michelin is also participating in the European BlackCycle consortium, which supports the circular economy, where 13 public and private sector companies will cooperate to design processes for producing new tires from waste tires.