According to statistics, in 2019, China’s waste tires generated about 330 million, equivalent to a weight of more than 10 million tons, and the amount of waste tires generated by scrapping every year is still growing at a rate of 6% to 8%.

Led by the circular economy policy, in recent years, China’s comprehensive utilization of scrap tires is an industry that has developed rapidly. The recycling rate of waste tires has increased year by year. In 2019, the comprehensive utilization of about 1,500 enterprises, resource recycling of waste tires about 200 million, the recycling rate of about 60%. Among them, the volume of tire retreading is about 5 million casings has been achieved, the production of recycled rubber is about 3 million tons, the production of rubber powder is about 1 million tons, and the volume of thermal cracking treatment using pyrolysis has now increased to approximately 1 million tons.

Lack Of Mandatory Retreading Standards, Tire Retreading Rate Is Relatively Low

From the current form of reuse, recycled rubber and rubber powder is the main force in the treatment of waste tires, accounting for more than 50% of the total annual processing volume, continuous and automated thermal cracking using pyrolysis technologies has accounted for a relatively low, while the tire retreading rate of only 5%.

In fact, tire retreading is the preferred way to recycle tire resources. With the original tire 35% of the raw materials, about 50% of the energy consumption, and 50% of the price, you can retread a tire, and mileage can reach more than 90% of the new tire.

Superior performance with cost-effectiveness, then why is China’s tire retreading rate so low? At present, the lack of mandatory retreading standards for domestic tires, the existence of heavy vehicles “a drive to waste” situation, tire wear to the end of the considered life of tires, which makes the replacement of the tire casing/carcass to lower quality which can not meet the retreading requirements.

On the other hand, people’s concept of tire retreading also needs to be changed. At present, the use of retreaded tires in the field of passenger cars in China is almost zero. Industry analysis, now many passenger car owners still have doubts about the quality of retreaded tires, most choose to simply repair or replace the tires after damage, which also leads to waste tires not being reasonably reused.

Industry Development Prospect Is Broad

As a strategic new industry, despite the problems to be solved, but the survey, the interviewed enterprises were generally optimistic about the market prospects of the comprehensive utilization of waste tires. In fact, along with the national environmental protection policies continue to increase and industry order to continue to regulate, waste tires are from the past “black pollution” into “black gold”.

As the tire recycling industry begins to now adopt a circular economy tire pyrolysis recycling plants are now under serious consideration across the country. It is estimated that the annual processing of waste tires 60,000 tons, can get 24,000 tons of recovered oil (rFO), 22,000 tons of recovered carbon black (rCB), 0.72 million tons of recovered steel wire (rSW), and a small amount of recovered syn-gas (rSG), the annual sales of these products is expected to reach about US $800 million. If the country’s annual production of ten million tons of scrap tires is utilized in a standardized pyrolysis carbonization process, the annual output value is estimated to create a multi-billion industrial value chain.

China’s car ownership is large and continues to grow, for the scrap tire market provides a sufficient market base. In addition to the strong demand, there is policy support. Previously, the National Development and Reform Commission issued a guide directory, that clearly identified the comprehensive utilization of waste tires as a strategic new industry, making it a sunrise industry for the benefit of the country and the people.

The general tone of the future development of the industry is ecological environmental protection as the foundation, achieving circular development as the driving force, energy-saving, and emission reduction as the path to obtaining renewable resources as the goal. China is actively exploring programs suitable for China’s national conditions to create the development of a world-leading tire recycling business that the rest of the planet can learn from, and contribute to human ecological environmental protection. If any country can do this, China can.