End-of-Life Tyre Toolkit

The Tire Industry Project has released the End-of-Life Tyre Toolkit 2.0, a practical guide to building sustainable end-of-life tyre management systems that cut waste and strengthen circularity across the global tyre sector.

Why Structured ELT Management Matters

Every year, vast volumes of tyres reach the end of their service life. Without a coordinated management system, they pile up in stockpiles and landfills or are lost to low-value disposal, wasting a material stream that still holds recoverable carbon, oil, and steel. Tyre-derived materials are among the more resource-dense waste streams a modern economy produces, which is why regulators and industry increasingly treat used tyres as a resource rather than a disposal problem. The toolkit’s central message is that a well-designed end-of-life tyre system does more than divert waste — it reduces environmental burden and strengthens circularity across the whole tyre value chain.

A Framework That Travels

What distinguishes this guidance is its emphasis on flexibility. Rather than prescribing a single operating model, the End-of-Life Tyre Toolkit outlines principles that can be adapted to a country’s specific legal framework, market maturity, and existing infrastructure. Transparent reporting and clear responsibilities across producers, collectors, and recovery operators are recurring themes, giving regulators and industry a shared language for measuring progress and comparing outcomes across regions with very different starting points.

Producer Responsibility and Traceability

Underpinning the guidance is the principle that every link in the value chain carries a share of responsibility for a tyre’s end of life. Extended producer responsibility schemes, transparent collection targets, and reliable data on where tyres actually end up are the practical tools the guide points to for building trust among regulators, producers, and the recycling industry alike. Without that traceability, even a well-intentioned system struggles to demonstrate real progress or direct investment to where it delivers the most value.

From Collection to Recovery

An effective ELT system is only as strong as the recovery pathways behind it. Once collected, end-of-life tyres can be turned into valuable outputs through technologies such as tire pyrolysis, which converts the material into recovered carbon black, pyrolysis oil, and recovered steel. Those outputs feed back into manufacturing and industry, closing the loop that the toolkit urges the sector to pursue.

For operators and governments planning such systems, feasibility studies help translate high-level guidance into a working project, while recovered carbon black and pyrolysis oil represent the commercial markets that make ELT recovery economically sustainable. A circular end-of-life tyre system is not just an environmental obligation; it is a route to long-term resource security and new value from a material once treated as waste.

Learn More:

• Tire Pyrolysis Technology
• Recovered Carbon Black
• Pyrolysis Oil Recovery
• Feasibility Studies for ELT Projects
• What Is Tire Pyrolysis?

Turn End-of-Life Tyres Into Value

A structured end-of-life tyre management system is the foundation of tyre circularity, and pyrolysis is the pathway that turns collected tyres into recovered carbon black, oil, and steel.

Whether you are a policymaker, producer, or recovery operator, Klean Industries can help you plan and build a recovery system that works.

Ready to put an End-of-Life Tyre Toolkit into action?

Contact Klean Industries about end-of-life tyre management » GO.