By Plasteurope.com correspondent

Finnish refiner Neste (Espoo; www.neste.com), Austrian polyolefins manufacturer Borealis (Vienna; www.borealisgroup.com), and German engineering plastics producer Covestro (Leverkusen; www.covestro.com) have agreed to work together to chemically recycle old car tyres, with the resulting material being turned into new automotive parts, such as headlamps and radiator grilles.

As part of the deal, Neste said it turns liquefied, discarded tyres into raw material for polymer and chemical manufacturing, which it supplies to Borealis, which processes the raw material into base chemicals phenol and acetone. This is then supplied to Covestro, which can use the materials to make polycarbonates. 

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As well as polycarbonates, the three firms said they may also consider polyurethanes as a possible end-product material, which could also find its way into parts of the interior of a car. 

Neste, Borealis, and Covestro said the potential to scale-up their technology and process chain should be considered when the EU sets various regulatory targets, such as the End-of-Life Vehicles Regulation.

Jeroen Verhoeven, Neste’s vice president of value-chain development for polymers and chemicals, said: “This project shows how low-quality waste materials can be turned into very high-quality plastics. This is good news for the polymers and automotive industries, as well as for the environment.”

Covestro recently announced the launch of its first range of polycarbonates based on chemically recycled, attributed material from post-consumer waste, which had also been processed by Neste and Borealis.