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Prism Worldwide (Prism) – a clean technology company – recently announced the commercial availability of AncoraTM C-1000 Thermoplastic Elastomer (TPE). Based on Prism’s patented technology, Ancora™ C-1000 contains a minimum of 50% post-consumer recycle content derived from end-of-life tires while maintaining the look, feel and processing of a typical petrochemically derived TPE. Ancora TPEs are a new class of TPE compounds utilizing polymers derived from end-of-life tires manufactured with Prism Worldwide’s patented PrismTM process.

When end-of-life tires reach the end of their life cycle, they become hazardous for the environment and human health if they are dumped in landfills. Made of synthetic rubber, chemicals, and additives, these tires contaminate water and land, pose a high risk of fire, generate harmful gases when burned, and serve as breeding grounds for insect-borne epidemics. These concerns are particularly relevant in Mexico, where an estimated 32 million tires are discarded annually, equivalent to one tire per second. Unfortunately, only 12% of these tires are recycled, with the majority ending up in landfills.

Bridgestone Americas (Bridgestone) announced that it has produced a run of demonstration tires made with 75% recycled and renewable materials, including synthetic rubber made with recycled plastics and natural rubber harvested from desert shrubs grown domestically, in the Arizona desert. The company has completed production of 200 demonstration tires and is pursuing joint evaluation with automakers for use on the next generation of electrified SUVs and crossovers (CUVs). The company’s relentless commitment to its goal of using 100% sustainable materials in its products by 2050 was underscored in remarks by Bridgestone Global CEO, Shuichi Ishibashi, during a February 16 briefing with media and industry analysts in Tokyo where Bridgestone also announced that it is pursuing a tire design utilizing 90% recycled and renewable materials for passenger cars.

The European Rubber Journal (ERJ) reports that the EU has included sanctions on imports of both synthetic rubber and carbon blacks from Russia in its 10th package of sanctions in response to the Putin regime’s war in Ukraine. The decision, announced on February 25, introduces import quotas of 562,973 tons for synthetic rubber and 752,475 tons for carbon black, apparently with immediate effect. According to the European Tyre & Rubber Manufacturers' Association (ETRMA), the import quotas are valid until 30 June 2024, after which an import-prohibition will apply.

Australian surf brand Rip Curl has started an initiative to recycle used wetsuits in collaboration with TerraCycle, private U.S.-based recycling business headquartered in Trenton, New Jersey. Old and useless surfing wetsuits will be recycled as part of the Recycle Your Wetsuit program so that the materials obtained can be used to create soft rubber playground matting. In 2021, the program was initially introduced in Australia, and since then, it has also been promoted in the United States, France, Portugal, and Spain. Surfers in Australia have the option to recycle any surfing wetsuit at authorized stores either in-person or via mail. The Recycle Your Wetsuit program has now been expanded to reduce the impact of wetsuit waste.

The Yokohama Rubber Co. announced that it will supply ADVAN racing tires with a sustainable material content as the control tire for the Japanese Super Formula Championship from the 2023 season. The company has completed development of tires for use in dry conditions and will continue developing tires for wet conditions with the aim of supplying them from 2023. The dry condition tires being supplied by Yokohama Rubber use natural rubber and various naturally derived compounding agents including oil produced from oil palm nuts and orange peels, as well as recycled iron, rubber recycled from waste tires, and synthetic rubber produced using the mass balance method – a method that allows you to label a commercial product as a biomass-derived product based on the volume of biomass-derived raw materials used during the process of turning raw materials into final products and the distribution process.

The team of Weibold, a tire recycling and tire pyrolysis consulting company based in Vienna, Austria, is speaking at a webinar organized by the International Institute of Synthetic Rubber Producers (IISRP). The webinar Trends & Opportunities for Circular Raw Materials from the Tire Waste Stream will be conducted by Andreas Kyriakou, Senior Partner at Weibold, and Claus Lamer, Senior Pyrolysis Consultant at Weibold. The webinar will be available in two sessions: Session I: December 7th - 9am CET / 5pm JST and Session II: December 7th - 9am CT US / 4pm CET. To register for the webinars, please proceed to the IISRP website using links above.

In the resent press-release, Automotive World magazine explores how pyrolysis technique for recovering raw materials from waste can be used to recycle end-of-life tyres. The technology solutions used in the automotive industry need to undergo radical change. By lowering the carbon footprint created by users, it has become easier to produce electric vehicles with zero emissions, but the production process still has a substantial negative influence on the environment.

You read that right. From dandelion. So far, rubber tires have been made of caoutchouc. However, the extraction of this rare raw material in the tropical regions of our planet is a burden on the environment. In its latest press release, AZuR reported that The Westphalian Wilhelms University of Münster and the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology are currently researching how the advantages of natural rubber can be produced on a sustainable basis in the future.