A tire designed to be profitable to recycle will actually get recycled.
Each year, millions of worn tires roll off Europe's roads and into an uncertain fate — only half finding their way to recycling, the rest burned or abandoned. Recycling Europe, the continent's industry association, has placed a formal set of recommendations before EU regulators, urging that the upcoming Ecodesign Regulation for Sustainable Products be written not from the manufacturer's drawing board outward, but from the recycler's reality inward. At stake is whether the circular economy becomes a genuine loop or merely a more elegant form of disposal.
- Modern tire innovations — self-sealing foams, acoustic dampeners, aramid fibers — are quietly making tires harder to recycle, raising fire risks and degrading the quality of recovered materials like carbon black.
- With only 50% of end-of-life EU tires reaching recyclers, the industry warns that as problematic materials proliferate, incineration will increasingly become the default outcome.
- Recycling Europe is pressing regulators to separate recycled-content targets for rubber and steel, closing a loophole that currently lets manufacturers satisfy circular economy quotas with recycled steel while ignoring the rubber recovery chain entirely.
- The Digital Product Passport — a transparency tool embedded in the ecodesign regulation — is being demanded as a mandatory, standardized record of every tire's hazardous compounds and complex systems, giving recyclers the knowledge they need to work safely and efficiently.
- The outcome hinges on whether the EU finalizes rules that are economically viable across the full supply chain, or produces standards too costly or vague to change industry behavior at scale.
Across Europe, millions of tires reach the end of their useful lives each year — and right now, only half of them are actually recycled. The rest are burned for energy or left to accumulate. Recycling Europe, the continent's industry association for recycling companies, has released a detailed set of recommendations aimed at changing that reality through the EU's upcoming Ecodesign Regulation for Sustainable Products.
The problem, the organization argues, begins at the design stage. Modern tires increasingly contain self-sealing compounds, acoustic foams, and aramid fibers that resist the grinding and shredding equipment recyclers depend on. These materials create operational hazards and degrade the quality of recovered carbon black — a valuable byproduct of pyrolysis. As such materials become more common, more tires will simply be incinerated rather than recovered.
Recycling Europe is calling for tires to be engineered with their end-of-life fate in mind from the outset. But design rules alone are insufficient without market incentives. The organization urges the EU to set separate recycled-content targets for rubber and steel — a distinction that matters because manufacturers can currently satisfy circular economy requirements using recycled steel, which has established markets, without ever creating demand for recycled rubber. The group also wants regulators to draw a clear line between recycled and bio-based materials: plant-derived inputs may reduce environmental impact, but they remain linear, not circular.
Central to Recycling Europe's push is the Digital Product Passport, a transparency mechanism embedded in the ecodesign regulation. The organization wants this passport to be mandatory and detailed — flagging self-sealing systems, acoustic foams, embedded batteries, and any substances that complicate recycling. A recycler who knows exactly what a tire contains can optimize treatment, protect workers, and recover more value. But the system only functions if it is standardized and affordable to implement across the entire supply chain.
What Recycling Europe is ultimately arguing is that circular economy policy must be built backward from the recycler's perspective. A tire designed to be profitable to recycle will get recycled. A tire designed only to perform on the road will eventually become waste. The difference between those two futures depends on rules that have not yet been written.
Across Europe, trucks and cars shed their worn tires by the millions each year. Three-quarters of the continent's freight moves by road, and those tires—once they reach the end of their useful life—represent both a resource and a problem. Right now, only half of the used tires generated in the European Union actually make it to recycling facilities. The rest are burned for energy or left to accumulate. Recycling Europe, the continent's industry association for recycling companies, has just released a detailed set of recommendations aimed at changing that math through stronger rules in the EU's upcoming Ecodesign Regulation for Sustainable Products.
The core issue, according to the organization, is that tire design itself has drifted away from recyclability. Manufacturers have begun embedding materials into tires that make them harder to process once they wear out. Self-sealing compounds and acoustic foams—increasingly common in modern tires—gum up the grinding and shredding equipment at recycling plants. These sticky materials can create fire hazards and operational risks. Aramida fibers, used to strengthen high-performance tires, similarly resist the mechanical breakdown that recyclers rely on. Even the silica content in some tires degrades the quality of recovered carbon black, the valuable material extracted through a process called pyrolysis. As these problematic materials become more prevalent, Recycling Europe warns, more used tires will simply be incinerated instead of recovered.
The organization is calling for tires to be engineered with their end-of-life fate in mind from the factory floor onward. That means designing them to be shredded, granulated, and separated into usable components. But design rules alone won't work without market incentives. Recycling Europe is pushing the EU to set separate recycled-content targets for rubber and steel, rather than lumping them together. If manufacturers can hit their targets by using recycled steel—which already has established markets—they have no reason to demand recycled rubber from old tires. The distinction matters because it determines whether the circular economy actually closes the loop or simply shifts materials around.
The organization also wants the EU to distinguish between recycled materials and bio-based materials in future regulations. Plant-derived inputs may reduce environmental impact, but they don't build a circular system; they're still linear, still consumed and discarded. True circularity means the same material cycling back into production again and again.
At the heart of Recycling Europe's push is the Digital Product Passport, a transparency tool mandated by the ecodesign regulation. The passport is meant to follow a tire through its life, carrying information about what it contains and what hazards it poses. Recycling Europe wants this passport to be mandatory and detailed: it should flag self-sealing systems, acoustic foams, pressure-monitoring batteries, and any substances that could complicate or endanger the recycling process. A recycler who knows exactly what's inside a tire can optimize treatment, improve worker safety, and recover more value. But the passport system only works if it's standardized, affordable to implement across the entire supply chain, and actually used.
The recommendations land as the EU prepares to finalize its ecodesign rules. What Recycling Europe is arguing, in essence, is that circular economy policy must be built backward from the recycler's perspective, not forward from the manufacturer's. A tire designed to be profitable to recycle will actually get recycled. A tire designed only to perform well on the road will eventually become waste. The difference between those two futures depends on rules that haven't yet been written.
Citações Notáveis
Tire design is a determining factor for ensuring material recovery at end of life, yet only about half of used tires generated in the EU are currently sent to recycling.— Recycling Europe position
The Digital Product Passport must include mandatory information on problematic substances, self-sealing systems, acoustic foams, and battery-containing components to optimize treatment and improve recycling facility safety.— Recycling Europe recommendations
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does it matter whether recycled steel and rubber are counted separately in the regulations?
Because if you lump them together, a tire maker can hit their recycled-content target by using recycled steel—which is already valuable and easy to source—and ignore recycled rubber entirely. There's no incentive to create demand for rubber from old tires. You end up with a regulation that looks good on paper but doesn't actually close the loop.
So the problem isn't that we can't recycle tires. It's that we've designed them in ways that make recycling harder and less profitable.
Exactly. A self-sealing compound or acoustic foam makes the tire better to drive on, but it gums up the grinding equipment and creates fire risks at the recycling plant. The manufacturer never sees that cost. The recycler does.
What would a tire designed for recycling actually look like?
Simpler, probably. Materials that separate cleanly when shredded. No adhesives that stick to the machinery. No fibers that resist breakdown. It's not impossible—it just requires thinking about the end of the tire's life when you're designing the beginning.
And the Digital Product Passport—that's just transparency?
It's transparency with teeth. If a recycler knows a tire has a self-sealing system before it arrives, they can prepare for it, isolate it, handle it safely. Right now they're discovering these things mid-process, which creates hazards and waste.
Is this about making recycling more profitable, or about environmental responsibility?
Both. They're the same thing. If recycling isn't profitable, it won't happen at scale. Right now half of Europe's used tires don't get recycled. Better design and clearer information make recycling economically viable, which means it actually happens.