Tyre Recycling Momentum

Tyrewise’s fifth milestone report, covering late 2025, shows tyre recycling momentum building across New Zealand as participation rises and end-of-life tyre markets continue to mature.

A National Stewardship Scheme Gathering Pace

Tyrewise has published its fifth milestone report, covering the period from October to December 2025, and the picture is one of steadily growing tyre recycling momentum across New Zealand. The report points to rising industry participation, increased interest in recycling projects, and continued development of the country’s end-of-life tyre markets — signs that New Zealand’s regulated product stewardship approach is maturing well beyond its early rollout phase.

Industry Events Deepen Regional Collaboration

Two events anchored the reporting period. The Round Trip Summit in Melbourne, co-hosted by Tyrewise and Tyre Stewardship Australia, brought recyclers and manufacturers together to explore sustainable applications for recycled tyre materials. A second gathering, the Future Roads Conference in Hamilton, carried the same theme into New Zealand’s own infrastructure conversation, linking recovered rubber to road construction and civil engineering.

Expanding Markets for Recovered Tyre Material

The underlying theme of the report is market development. Stewardship schemes only succeed when collected tyres have somewhere valuable to go, and New Zealand is actively building those outlets. Recovered material can be processed into crumb rubber for rubberized asphalt, or converted through tire pyrolysis into recovered carbon black, pyrolysis oil and recovered steel — each pathway turning a difficult waste stream into a commodity with real market value, and each depending on a steady, traceable supply of end-of-life tyres reaching the right facilities rather than leaking into landfill or illegal stockpiles. The more robust those end markets become, the more value a collected tyre holds for everyone in the chain.

Stewardship as the Foundation of a Circular Tyre Economy

Tyrewise operates as New Zealand’s regulated product stewardship scheme for end-of-life tyres, coordinating collection and processing across the country so that discarded tyres are recovered rather than dumped, stockpiled or burned. That coordination role is what turns individual recycling efforts into a dependable, nationwide feedstock stream. As the fifth milestone report demonstrates, the scheme is now translating early participation into a self-reinforcing loop: more collection supports more processing capacity, which in turn strengthens the end markets that make recovery economically viable.

Why This Momentum Matters to Operators and Investors

For the wider industry, Tyrewise’s trajectory carries a clear signal. Formal, regulated collection is the upstream requirement for every downstream recycling technology, and a stewardship scheme that is demonstrably growing participation lowers feedstock risk for pyrolysis and recovered carbon black projects alike. Reliable end-of-life tyre supply is one of the most important factors in plant economics, and national schemes are how that supply gets built. For operators weighing new capacity, this is the moment to move. A feasibility study is the natural next step for anyone looking to turn this momentum into a commercial facility.

Learn More:

• Tire pyrolysis and waste-to-value projects
• Recovered carbon black (rCB) production
• What is tire pyrolysis?
• What is recovered carbon black?
• Project feasibility studies

Planning a Tyre Recycling Project?

Klean Industries helps operators turn end-of-life tyres into fuels, recovered carbon black and other high-value products.

From feedstock and logistics assessment to technology selection and plant economics, our team supports projects from first concept through commissioning.

Ready to explore the opportunity?

Contact Klean Industries about tyre recycling and stewardship » GO.