PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
About nine million end-of-life vehicles (ELV) per year are recycled in the EU, while around 15% of ELV materials are still considered waste and end in landfills. End-of-life tyres (ELT) are one of the main sources of waste of ELVs, generating in Europe around 2.6 million tonnes/year, 95% might be recovered as reusable material (39%) or energy (37%). This is in line with the revised EU End-of-Life Vehicles Directive (2011/37/EU) which now requires the reuse and/or recovery of almost all used tyres. ELT could be a source of several valuable secondary raw materials. Typically, the output of the treatment process of ELT is shredded material of various sizes and types, depending on the intended use, including rubber chips or granules, steel fibres and textile fibre. Unlike rubber and steel materials that are currently being reused in various fields, textiles represent a special waste to be disposed of and the use of ELT in this area is quite limited due to two main reasons: first, the fibre coming from the current treatment plants contains a high amount of rubber (45% by weight) trapped between the meshes, that limits its possible re-use; and secondly, there are currently no useful and affordable applications for fibre re-use that makes recycling worthwhile.
OBJECTIVES
The project REFIBRE-LIFE aimed to overcome the two main existing barriers limiting ELT fibre recycling. Its overall objective was that 100% of the ELT fibre material is transformed into a useful secondary raw material within a ‘circular economy’ approach.
Specific objectives of the project were to:
- Design, construct and validate an innovative industrial pilot plant to treat, clean and process ELT fibres, making them recyclable and re-usable in two applications: reinforced plastic compounds and bituminous mix for new asphalts;
- Produce new materials (plastic compounds and asphalts) that have been modified with the fibre and demonstrate their superior technical features and economic viability compared to traditional ones;
- Finalise quantitative assessment of the environmental impact of the process involving LCA and LCC, proving the cost and environmental effectiveness of the proposed new solution; and
- Assess quantitatively the environmental impact indicators by LCA and LCC in order to prove cost/environmental effectiveness of the proposed new solutions.
RESULTS
The REFIBRE-LIFE project demonstrated the viability of re-using end-of-life tyres in plastic compounds and in bituminous mixtures for asphalts. The project team carried out tests on pre-industrial and industrial scales to show the environmental benefits. Fibres were compounded with a range of low-melting temperature polymers for testing. Specifically, the project results lead to conclude that recycling 1 200 tonnes of ELT-derived fibre a year would achieve the following savings:
- 200 tonnes of landfill waste;
- 1 000 tonnes of waste to incineration;
- 1 000 tonnes of CO2 emissions;
- 13 000 kg of SO2 emissions;
- 1 600 kg of fine powders (PM2.5, PM5, PM10).
The team also calculated that the use of the fibres could produce: 6 000 tonnes of plastic PP compounds (20% by weight) which is sufficient to manufacture around 400 000 bins with 240 litre volume for waste garbage collection; and 400 000 tonnes of reinforced asphalt (0.3% by weight), enough to refurbish 200 km of road.
The results of the LCA analysis considering three different asphalts showed that the use of recycled fibre in asphalt as well as optimising the production process, increases performance and useful life.
An economic assessment also confirmed that the new process is financially viable in the medium and long term, and that the process is economically sustainable. Indeed, all partners pledged to pursue the new technology in their respective areas.
The beneficiaries also established permanent collaboration with national and regional authorities, such as the ministry of environment, ministry of economic development and the Tuscany region, for the definition of environmental criteria for green public procurements for road infrastructures. Finally, the project helped inform the updating of technical standards for ELT derived materials (namely, the standards CEN/TC366 and CEN/TS 14243:2010), concerning the ELT textile fibres recovery methodology, cleaning, characterisation, and strategies for reuse on relevant markets.
A potential replication at national scale in Italy could lead to e.g. the production of 200,000 tons/year of plastic compounds (20% by weight) and the production of 13,300,000 tons/year of reinforced asphalt (0.3% by weight) - enough to refurbish 6,600 Km of road.
The project thus made relevant contributions to the implementation of the Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC and the End-of Life Vehicles Directive 2000/53/EC. It is also in line with the EU Circular Economy Package and the Resource Efficiency Roadmap, which support actions to promote the use of secondary resources in other industries.
Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report and After-LIFE Communication Plan (see "Read more" section).
