Continental is the first tire manufacturer to start the series production of tires with polyester yarn made from recycled PET plastic bottles. This is a great success for the company that introduced the technology ContRe.Tex at the basis of the project last September. Continental quickly got into production and thus took an important step towards an increasingly sustainable business. Here are the details on Continetnal’s new project:
Continental presents the first tires made with polyester made from recycled plastic bottles
The company has confirmed that it will initially use the new material for PremiumContact 6 and EcoContact 6 summer tires and for it AllSeasonContact tire. The company’s new proposal completely replaces conventional polyester. Continental’s new technology represents a truly important sustainable solution for the future. A set of standard tires for a car, in fact, contains the polyester needed to make approx 40 PET bottles. The possibility of recycling the material is therefore a very important resource for the future. The system developed by Continental involves the mechanical shredding of PET which is then transformed into granulated polyester and, therefore, into yarn.
The company comment
Ferdinand Hoyos, Continental’s business replacement manager in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), points out: “We only use high-performance materials in our premium tires. From now on, these will include polyester yarn made from PET bottles and made with a particularly efficient recycling process. We brought our innovative ContiRe.Tex technology to the production stage in just eight months “