Michelin announces sustainability plan

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Michelin, Greenville, South Carolina, has announced its plan to ensure that by 2048, all of its tires will be manufactured using 80 percent sustainable materials and 100 percent of its tires will be recycled during the Movin'On 2018 summit May 30-June 1 in Montreal, Quebec.

Today, the worldwide recovery rate for tires is 70 percent and the recycling rate is 50 percent. Michelin tires are currently made using 28 percent sustainable materials (26 percent bio-sourced materials like natural rubber, sunflower oil, limonene etc. and 2 percent recycled materials such as steel or recycled powdered tires). For a sustainable future, Michelin is investing in recycling technologies to be able to increase this content to 80 percent sustainable materials.

The goal will be achieved by research programs into bio-sourced materials, like Biobutterfly, and working with Michelin's partners and the advanced technologies and materials that are being developed in these partnerships. The Biobutterfly program was launched in 2012 with French renewable energy service and equipment provider Axens and its parent company IFP Energies Nouvelles to create synthetic elastomers from biomass such as wood, straw or beet.

Michelin is developing solutions to integrate more recycled and renewable materials in its tires while continuing to improve performance, including 30 percent of recycled materials by 2048. This is demonstrated by the recent acquisition of Lehigh Technologies, a specialist in high technology micro-powders derived from recycled tires based in Tucker, Georgia.

Lehigh is a specialty chemical company that is part of the high technology materials business unit of Michelin. Lehigh manufactures micronized rubber powders (MRP), a raw material that reduces feedstock costs by up to 50 percent. MRP replaces oil- and rubber-based feedstocks in a wide range of industrial and consumer applications, including high performance tires, plastics, consumer goods, coatings, sealants, construction materials and asphalt.

Lehigh operates a MRP manufacturing plant in Tucker, Georgia, with an annual production capacity of 54,000 tons. Its application and development center is also located in Tucker and serves as a hub where Michelin conducts research and formulates MRPs in collaboration with its customers. Michelin has five product ranges so far, PolyDyne, MicroDyne, EkoDyne, Rheopave and Zenoflex.

In 2018, according to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Geneva, Switzerland, it is estimated that 1 billion of end of life tires are generated worldwide, representing around 25 million tons. Within this total, 70 percent of tires are recovered, and 50 percent are recycled every year on average. This 50 percent is the amount of material recycled into products such as rubber used in sports surfaces, and the additional 20 percent is transformed into energy.

By comparison, 14 percent of plastic containers or packages are recovered each year (Source: newplasticseconomy.org), and the car industry has a target of 3.5 percent recycling rate.

Michelin is investing in recycling technology so that, by 2048, tires are 100 percent recycled for the vehicles of the future. To achieve these ambitions, Michelin proposes to develop partnerships and identify new ways to recycle tires or new outlets for recycled tires.

As a result, a Hackathon was held in 2017, in partnership with French tire recycler Alliapur, to brainstorm solutions in which tire granulates could be used. The winner of this Hackathon was Black Pillow, which suggested creating safe urban furniture made of tire granulates.

When these ambitions are achieved, the savings will be equivalent to:

• 33 million barrels of oil saved per year (16.5 supertankers), or 54,000 gigawatt-hours.
• One month's total energy consumption of France.
• 65 billion kilometers (km) (40 billion miles) driven by an average sedan (8 liters per 100 km/29 miles per gallon) per year.
• All cars in Europe driving 225 km/130 miles, or 54 km/34 miles for all cars worldwide (1.2 billion cars estimated).