Carbios and Michelin achieve world’s first application of PET enzymatic recycling in car tires

In France, CARBIOS, a bio-industrial company reinventing the lifecycle of plastics, and MICHELIN, the world’s largest tire manufacturer, took a major step towards developing 100% sustainable tires. Michelin has successfully tested and applied Carbios’ enzymatic recycling process for PET plastic waste, in order to create a high tenacity tire fibre that meets the tire-giant’s technical requirements.

Carbios’ enzymatic recycling process uses an enzyme capable of depolymerizing the PETcontained in various plastics or textiles (bottles, trays, polyester clothing, etc.). This innovation allows infinite recycling of all types of PET waste. It also allows the production of 100% recycled and 100% recyclable PET products, with the same quality as if they were produced with virgin PET. The application of PET enzymatic recycling in car tires is a world first.

Conventional thermomechanical recycling processes for complex plastics do not achieve the PET high-performance grade required for pneumatic applications. However, the monomers resulting from Carbios’ process, which used colored and opaque plastic waste such as bottles, once repolymerized in PET, made it possible to obtain a high tenacity fibre meeting Michelin’s tire requirements.