How many plastic bottles do you see in this tire (made in Portugal)? – Observer
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Continental’s factory in Lousado, Vila Nova de Famalicão, is producing the first tires with collector wire from recycled PET bottles, based on a new technology called ContiRe.Tex, which was presented in the latest edition of IAA Mobility , an international car show which, in 2021, was tested for the first time in Munich.
In a statement, the company highlights the speed with which this “in-house developed technology” went into series production. Between the product, in September, the GreenConti product, using the tire casing, made from used plastic bottles, and the launch of the recycled polyethylene yarn series, not even a year later. “We only use high-performance materials in our premium tires. From now on, they will include polyester yarn from PET bottles, in a particularly efficient recycling process. We took our innovative ContiRe.Tex technology to production in just eight months. I am pleased today with our team for this recognized achievement”, declared Ferdinand Hoyos, responsible for the Continental Africa Substitution Market Area in Europe, Middle East and Business (EMEA).
Comprising the share of renewable and recycled materials in the tires it produces that, in 2050, the tire truck Continental uses “only materials up to promises bottles”, the German company that ContiRe. PET intermediate and efficient non-recyclable steps”, which “makes the technology more widely used methods, compares with other standard methods used in processing PET bottles into high performance polyester”.
Using the pressure force of PET as a material in tire mounting is not in itself a new thing, with the advantage of being that the textile cords learn as a force from the internal initiative of the tire and remain stable even under the most demanding conditions. , either load or temperature. What is essentially different from ContiRe.Tex is the fact that “the bottles used are exclusively from regions without a closed recycling circuit”. In that case, the bottles would be collected and recycled to make new bottles. To make the polyester yarn, Continental’s factory in Lousado is being used, as the bottles are used clean and mechanically separated, no longer capped, then they are crushed from there, the PET is transformed into granulated and, finally, into the designed yarn. of recycled. That is why the sidewall of tires with ContiRe.Tex technology bears the inscription “contains recycled material”.
This new material will be used in some dimensions of PremiumContact 6, EcoContact 6 and AllSeasonContact tyres, with Continental noting that “a set of standard passenger car tires uses around 40 recycled PET bottles”.
All Tex are advanced to the Volta à Lousado, which is also where the tires with the technology developed the Extreme And the cars are developed with the German company supporting that, this France will mount only ContiRe.Tex tires.