Nokian Tyres has made a long-term purchase agreement with a tire recycling joint venture. The agreement will help Nokian Tyres reach one of its key sustainability targets, which is to increase the share of recycled and renewable raw materials in tires to 50% by 2030, the company said. Nokian Tyres started to use recovered carbon black in a commercial product line in 2022. The long-term purchase agreement with a tire recycling joint venture enables its increased utilization in tires accelerating circularity and sustainability in the tire industry.

According to Nokian, the joint venture, formed by e.g. Antin Infrastructure Partners and Scandinavian Enviro Systems, plans to establish end-of-life tire recycling plants across Europe, with a total capacity to recycle up to one million tons of end-of-life tires annually by 2030. The first plant, located in Sweden, is expected to be fully operational by 2025. The deliveries for Nokian Tyres will begin in 2026.

Carbon black is a reinforcing filler in tires to enhance their physical properties, such as strength. As virgin carbon blacks are fossil-based, replacing them partly with recovered carbon black decreases the environmental burden of tires’ raw materials, Nokian said. It also accelerates the circular economy of the tire industry, as the recovered carbon black is made with pyrolysis from end-of-life tires.

“The use of recovered carbon black has several sustainability-related benefits,” Juha Hietalahti, VP, procurement at Nokian Tyres, said. “It reduces the use of virgin raw materials and increases the share of recycled ones. The emissions from manufacturing recovered carbon black are over 90 percent lower than those from virgin carbon blacks. On a larger scale, use of recovered carbon black also increases circularity and sustainability in the tire industry.”