In a world where raw materials are increasingly strategic, circularity is no longer simply about managing waste. It is about recognizing value where others may see the end of a product's life and creating systems capable of keeping materials in use for longer.
This vision is driving a growing number of initiatives across Pirelli's global operations. While each project follows its own technological and industrial pathway, they share the same ambition: transforming materials that have already completed one lifecycle into valuable inputs for the next.
Closed-Loop Circularity: Giving Tyres a Second Life
For a tyre manufacturer, this challenge begins with its own products. End-of-life tyres and production scrap represent resources that contain valuable materials, expertise and industrial potential. Recovering and reintroducing these materials into new production processes is one of the ways to reduce reliance on virgin raw materials while supporting a more efficient use of resources.
In Europe, Pirelli has launched the tyre-to-tyre project driving the development of an industrial ecosystem designed to give new life to end-of-life and scrap tyres by transforming them into materials for new products. Through collaborations with Pyrum, BASF and Synthos, materials recovered from tyres at the end of their life are processed and reintroduced into the value chain as raw materials for the production of new tyres. The initiative contributes to the development of an industrial ecosystem that combines advanced recycling technologies, certified processes and material traceability.
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In North America, Pirelli has worked on one project focused on the recovery and reuse of materials derived from tyre production scrap. In collaboration with Bolder Industries, carbon black and petrochemical products are recovered from manufacturing waste through a circular process designed to keep valuable materials in productive use. The project demonstrates how production scrap can become a resource for new industrial applications rather than being discarded or recovered in ways that fail to preserve its full value.
Open-Loop Circularity: Integrating Recycled Materials into Tyre Production
Circularity can also be advanced through the integration of recycled materials originating from other industrial value chains. Alongside initiatives focused on recovering materials from tyres and production scrap, Pirelli is working to expand the use of certified recycled inputs that can contribute to tyre manufacturing.
In China, a project has been launched that demonstrates how recycled steel can support tyre production through certified and traceable supply chains. Working with Xingda, Pirelli has introduced recycled steel for tyre production, supported by third-party certification to ensure traceability throughout the process. The initiative shows how recycled materials can be integrated into tyre manufacturing while maintaining rigorous quality and sourcing standards.
Different Approaches, One Shared Objective
Together, these initiatives illustrate two complementary approaches to circularity. Closed-loop projects focus on recovering value from end-of-life tyres and production scrap, enabling materials to remain within the tyre value chains. Open-loop initiatives, meanwhile, integrate recycled materials sourced from other sectors into tyre manufacturing through certified and traceable supply chains.
While the technologies and materials involved may differ, both approaches contribute to reducing reliance on virgin raw materials, strengthening supply chain resilience and promoting a more efficient use of resources.
Circularity at Pirelli extends beyond the latest material recovery initiatives. For several years, the company has been integrating raw materials derived from waste streams into its tyres, including silica obtained from rice husk ash and recycled PET fibres sourced from post-consumer plastic bottles. These materials are already used in regular production, helping increase the share of bio-based and recycled materials while ensuring the highest standards of quality and performance.
For Pirelli, giving new value to resources means looking not only at what is needed to produce a tyre, but also at how materials can continue contributing to new products and applications once their first lifecycle has come to an end, involving other actors, possibly from different industries, each playing their own role, bringing their specific knowledge and technologies, and their willingness to contribute to a common goal, exactly as in an ecosystem.
A more circular future starts with seeing resources not as something to be consumed, but as something capable of creating value again and again.
