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A Spanish waste tire management company Signus has released a report outlining the successful implementation of rubberized asphalt mixtures in Spain; the report considers almost all projects carried out in the country with the material since 1996 up to the first quarter of 2017. The report is of great value as currently there are over 1,600 kilometres of road works using crumb rubber from end-of-life tyres (ELT) in Spain.

Every year, approximately 150 million tires are processed for recycling in Europe. This rubber from recycled tires has several useful applications, including being a crucial component of the artificial turf used in playgrounds, football fields, and road construction. The European Recycling Industries Federation (EuRIC), the Spanish Federation for Recovery and Recycling (FER), and the Collective Management System for End-of-Life Tyres in Spain (SIGNUS) have all issued statements warning of the significant consequences of the European Commission's proposal to ban the use of rubber crumb, a byproduct of tyres that have reached the end of their useful lives, on artificial turf fields without taking into account alternative, equally effective policies with less negative environmental effects.

Spainish tire recycling authority Signus is reducing tire recycling fee by 3,55 percent since January this year – the decision was made during the budget approval by the Board of Directors for the new financial year. Therefore, the fee for a passenger vehicle tire will become € 1.24 instead of € 1.28, and the recycling fee for a truck tire changes to € 9,20 from € 9,57.

The scope of application of recycled tire rubber continues expanding all around the world, and Spain aims to catch up with the trend. Spain’s province of Granada has come up with the first is Spain innovative railway track system relying on recycled tire rubber. Now, recycled tire rubber will be used in subways to reduce noise produced by train tracks. The noise reduction is possible thanks to special technology made with a mixture of rubber from old tires and polyurethane resin, which ensures elastic properties of railroad tracks.

SIGNUS’s project created in partnership with Segurvital – as well as initiatives by Aigües de Mataró, Heineken, Circoolar, Unidad Editorial - Expansión, and Universidad Francisco de Vitoria – has won in various categories in the 4th BASF Circular Economy Awards which took place in Madrid on November 10. As the SME category winner, SIGNUS highlights its involvement in the project developed with the company Segurvital, which has approved a protection system for motorcyclists that incorporates rubber rollers from tires and demonstrated outstanding effectiveness in tests.

SIGNUS Ecovalor – a Spanish end-of-life tire managaement authority – reports that the American tire manufacturer, Cooper Tire & Rubber Company Europe Ltd, joins the organization with the aim of guaranteeing the correct environmental management of the tires they put on the market, when those are at the end of their useful life.

Spain has taken a step to get rid of scrap tires from beaches as part of the Libera Project. The measure united well-known brands and corporations such as Pirelli Tires, Michelin, Goodyear and others; they joined Signus – Spanish scrap tire management authority – and the Network of Marine Rangers to advance the program labeled “1 Square Metre by Nature”. All parties involved in the initiative sought an aim to effectively remove and manage waste tires so they could be reused.

Recycling tires into materials such as steel-free crumb rubber and fine rubber powder used to be a profitable venture; however, due to market saturation in developed economies, tire recycling companies might want to shift their focus from raw materials to potentially higher-priced consumer goods made from recycled rubber or even virgin rubber which can be replaced by tire-derived materials. The first and so far one of the most viable choices of tire recyclers would be investing in presses and molds to produce molded goods from crumb rubber or rubber powder. Another options include more complex technologies, e.g. blending recycled rubber powder with polyethylene or polypropylene to produce thermoplastic elastomers (TPE).

Recently published by Spain's Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge Order1522/2021 defines end-of-waste criteria for recycled rubber from end-of-life tires, opening up new market options for these materials.