Tyre manufacturer Continental is to use recycled PET bottles in the manufacture of its tyres.
A recycled polyester yarn, made from PET bottles, will replace the conventional polyester in a tyre carcass.
Typically, a tyre will use 40 PET bottles using the new ContiRe.Tex material.
Initially, the recycled polyester yarn will be used in Continental’s PremiumContact 6 and EcoContact 6 summer tyres.
The polyester yarn is manufactured using PET bottles from regions that do not have a closed loop recycling option. The bottles are sorted and mechanically cleaned, after the caps are removed. After mechanical shredding, the PET is further processed into granulate and finally spun polyester yarn.
Continental head of tyre replacement business in Europe, Middle East and Africa Ferdinand Hoyos said: “We only use high-performance materials in our premium tyres. From now on, these will include polyester yarn from PET bottles, made in a particularly efficient recycling process.
“We brought our ContiRe.Tex technology to the production stage in just eight months. I’m proud of our entire team for this remarkable achievement.
“We’re constantly expanding the share of renewable and recycled material in our tyres. By 2050 at the latest, we want to use only sustainable materials in our tyre production.”
