According to the press release of SIGNUS – a Spanish end-of-life tire management authority – from July 2021, during 2020, the organization managed 150,228 tons of end-of-life tires which it turned into new useful products for different applications. Of the total amount of tires collected, about 12% went for reuse (second-use or retreading), 35.2% were for energy recovery and the remaining 52.8% was recycled in the different tire recycling plants in Spain. Among the main uses for the material obtained from the end-of-life tires in 2020, there are 21,660 tons for the installation of about 215 football fields, 14,637 tons for the construction of approximately 2,900 playgrounds and 2,202 tons that were used to pave some 200 kilometers of highways, among others.

SIGNUS pinpoints that the global pandemic and the economic slowdown have made Europe place sustainability as one of the main pillars of recovery and towards this are the different member countries, including Spain, directing all their efforts through a solid regulatory framework. An example of this is the promotion of the Circular Economy through a strategy until 2030 that is implemented every three years through specific action plans.

In this regard SIGNUS has been promoting different projects to give value to recycled materials with private companies, universities and technology centers with the aim of guaranteeing the future of recycling and maximizing the value of all its components .

During 2020, a large part of the efforts and studies carried out have been related to the promotion of the use of rubber powder in bituminous mixtures, one of the current tire recycling applications that does not yet reach its great consumption potential. But it has also developed projects in other sectors such as fashion, for which it has developed a digital platform (neomatique.es) that brings together all the information related to the recycled tire rubber as a multipurpose material and interesting characteristics for the fashion and industry sector.

Original press release by Signus.