Recently, SIGNUS – a Spanish end-of-life tire management authority – has published its Activity Reportfor the 2021 financial year, where the company highlighted that 200,286 tonnes of ELTs were converted into new useful products for different applications.

Of the total collected, 11.4% was used to prepare it for reuse (second-use or retreaded tires), 36.4% was used for energy recovery and the remaining 52.3% was recycled at the different plants. of transformation existing in Spain, in products that were destined to different applications. Looking at the main uses for the recovered material in 2021, 28,318 tonnes of rubber crumb were used across 280 artificial turf football pitches, whilst 20,767 tonnes were used for the construction of approximately 4,100 playgrounds and 1,674 tonnes were used across 160 kilometres of highways.

In the report, Gabriel Leal, General Director of SIGNUS, underlines that 2021 has been the year of the recovery of the Spanish replacement market, for which 17.3% more has been managed than in the previous year. The General Director of SIGNUS also highlights that in 2021 tires with a diameter greater than 1,400 mm have been managed for the first time, an obligation recently added in the Royal Decree that regulates the management of end-of-life tyres. Also noteworthy is the fact that SIGNUS includes practically all the workshops that change tires in our country, reaching the number of 25,820 workshops attended in 2021.

During the past financial year, SIGNUS has continued to work on adding value to the materials from tire recycling, as it has been doing since it began its activity in 2006, working to this end hand in hand with private companies, universities and technology centers with the aim of guarantee the future of recycling and maximize the value of all its components.

During 2021, a large part of the efforts and studies carried out are related to the proposal to restrict the use of microplastics, which would prohibit the use of rubber crumb as filler in artificial turf pitches. SIGNUS has launched a project to monitor an artificial turf soccer field in order to assess the effectiveness of the containment measures that would prevent the release of these particles into the environment. In parallel, there have been other developments in different productive sectors such as brake pads or concrete acoustic screens with recycled rubber, in addition to studies related to the use of rubberized asphalt.

Press release by SIGNUS.