Rubber is too valuable to waste. At Genan, we recycle end-of-life tires into high-quality rubber – used in everything from roads to sports fields – offering a cleaner, more sustainable alternative to incineration.
Rubber
At Genan, we recycle end-of-life tires into high-quality raw materials, with rubber as one of the key outputs. This page explores how recycled rubber is used, how it interacts with the environment, and why recycling is more sustainable than other forms of waste handling.
An eye to the future
Recycled rubber from end-of-life tires is widely used in applications where it comes in direct contact with the natural environment. The most common examples are infill material in synthetic turf fields and asphalt for road construction.
Over the years, many scientific studies from around the world have examined how recycled rubber interacts with the environment. One major environmental concern has been the potential leaching of metals and organic chemical substances from recycled rubber into drainage systems and surrounding waters. Special attention has been drawn to zinc, PAH’s as well as dissolved organic carbon. And to date, no evidence has been found to support claims that leaching of chemical substances from infill and e-layers used in synthetic turf will cause environmental problems.
Compared to incinerating tires in cement kilns, recycling tires into rubber granulate and reclaimed steel offers a far better environmental outcome. Life Cycle Assessment studies show clear benefits: lower CO₂ emissions and less negative impact on the acidification of the atmosphere. That’s because tires contain sulphur, which is released into the atmosphere when burned – but remains contained when tires are recycled.
Still, the quality is of crucial importance, and at Genan we don’t compromise. Our recycled rubber comes exclusively from end-of-life tires, so no mixed rubber waste, and we enforce strict and continuous quality control to ensure a clean, consistent and trusted material.
Recycling
What is the most responsible way to deal with waste – whether it’s plastic, electronics, organics or tires? The answer lies in the waste hierarchy: a simple model used globally to prioritize waste handling from most to least sustainable.
The waste hierarchy is part of EU legislation, Directive 2008/98, and is also being implemented as environmental legislation in other parts of the world. It is an obligation for EU member states to look for waste solutions as high up in the hierarchy as possible. The scientific tool used to measure the impact of different waste disposal solutions is called Life Cycle Assessment.
The best solution is to avoid waste altogether. For tires, this would mean less driving. Given global growth, this is not a likely near-term outcome.
Tires can be retreaded – applying new tread to the casing. It gives tires a second or third life, but only works while the casing remains intact.
When tires can no longer be reused, the next-best option is to separate their core materials – rubber, steel and textile – and recycle them. This is the Genan process. (*Some technologies, like pyrolysis, sit between mechanical recycling and energy recovery. Pyrolysis breaks tyres into oil, gas and recovered carbon black, but is still a form of partial destruction.)
Burning tires for energy (co-incineration) is less sustainable, as it destroys the materials and recovers only part of the original energy.
The worst choice. Tires take up space, don’t decompose, and attract pests. In the EU, landfilling of tires has been banned since 2003, but it’s still common elsewhere.
At Genan, we give used tires a new life, creating unique and sustainable products – only imagination sets the limit! Have an idea or a request? Let’s make it happen.
