Inspired by the ‘Vision’ concept tyre introduced in 2017, an airless, connected, rechargeable and entirely sustainable solution, the Michelin Group is committed to making its tyres 100% sustainable by 2050.
Today, nearly 30% of the components used in the manufacture of tyres produced by the Michelin Group are already made from natural, recycled or otherwise sustainable raw materials.
A Michelin tyre comprises more than 200 ingredients. The main ingredient is natural rubber, but the many ingredients also include synthetic rubber, metal, fibers and components that strengthen a tyre’s structure, like carbon black, silica and plasticizers (resins, etc.). Incorporated in perfect proportions, these materials interact to deliver an optimal balance of performance, driveability and safety, while steadily reducing the tyre’s environmental impact.
Michelin has forged partnerships with innovative companies and start-ups to develop technologies that go well beyond the world of tyres and could be used in other industries, enabling them to benefit as well from recovered raw materials that are infinitely reusable. These technologies will also make it possible to recycle polystyrene and recover carbon black or pyrolysis oil from used tires.
Axens and IFP Energies Nouvelles, the two companies that are spearheading the BioButterfly project, have been working with Michelin since 2019 on producing bio-sourced butadiene to replace petroleum-based butadiene. Using the biomass from wood, rice husks, leaves, corn stalks and other plant waste, 4.2 million tonnes of wood chips could be incorporated into Michelin tyres every year.
Signed in November 2020, the partnership between Michelin and Canada-based Pyrowave can produce recycled styrene from plastics found in packaging, like yogurt pots and food trays, or in insulating panels. Styrene is an important monomer used to manufacture not only polystyrene but also synthetic rubber for tires and a wide variety of consumer goods. Eventually, several tens of thousands of tonnes of polystyrene waste could be recycled back into its original products as well as into Michelin tyres every year.
The revolutionary process developed by French startup Carbios uses enzymes to deconstruct PET plastic waste into its original pure monomers, which can be infinitely recovered and reused to make new PET plastics. One of these recovered plastics just happens to be the polyester yarn used in tire manufacturing. Some four billion plastic bottles could potentially be recycled into Michelin tyres every year.
Michelin announced in February 2021 that it will launch the construction of its first tyre recycling plant in the world with Enviro, a Swedish company which has developed a patented technology to recover carbon black, pyrolysis oil, steel, gas and other new, high-quality reusable materials from end-of-life tyres. It will enable everything in these tires to be recovered and reused in several types of rubber-based production processes.