Environmental performance

High-quality processing of end of life tyres

The RecyBEM-system retrieves excellent results for a cleaner environment. What are these results?

We recycle and re-use ninety percent of the tyres collected, which are the best processing methods according to Lansink’s ladder. The RecyBEM system yields 32 million kilos of rubber and steel as raw materials through recycling. Our system also provides energy through incineration with energy recovery. Our system leads to a reduction of almost 60,000 tonnes in CO₂ emissions. The CO₂ we save is equivalent to the emissions caused by driving 400 million kilometers. That’s 10,000 times around the globe or the equivalent of planting 400,000 new trees.

Most tyres are re-used as materials

According to the Dutch legislation on end of life tyres, processing must focus on material re-use, product re-use, beneficial alternative use or incineration (with energy recovery), whereby at least twenty percent of the tyres collected must be processed for material re-use. In the Netherlands, we process far more tyres as material re-use. Between six and seven out of every ten tyres collected are processed into granulate and recycled in a range of different applications. As a result, we exceed all expectations with respect to the decree’s environmental objectives.

RecyBEM scores highly on various

Quality is our priority. We process the tyres that are collected in the most advanced way possible, but we are constantly looking for potential improvements. For example in the area of our CO₂ footprint. We use Ecotest to determine the burden on the environment. This enables us to look at those areas where we can optimize our environmental performance. We investigate the coherence between ecology (CO₂ footprint), recycling (raw materials recovery) and economics (costs). The Ecotest results demonstrate that RecyBEM is ensuring a cleaner environment:

• RecyBEM encourages recycling as a processing method.
• RecyBEM achieves a high percentage of material re-use by recycling sixty percent of the tyres collected. This is above the legally required twenty percent as defined in the legislation on end of life tyres.
• RecyBEM achieves a high level of CO₂ emissions savings. 
• RecyBEM ensures raw materials savings.

RecyBEM is also able to achieve high CO₂ emission savings through retreading. However, this processing method has a limited application, because of the strict requirements regarding the carcass of the used tyre. Therefore this only makes a small contribution to a cleaner environment. By encouraging recycling, RecyBEM discharges only ten percent of the end of life tyres to power generation plants and cement furnaces. This is good for the environment. Despite the fact that this incineration method has comparable results in the area of CO₂ emissions savings, in the incineration process valuable rubber cannot be re-used.

RecyBEM measures the environmental performance with Ecotest.