Tokyo, Japan — Marubeni Corporation of Japan, a global trading and investment house, is investing in Green Rubber Energy Company Limited to develop a tyre recycling business in Thailand. The proposed business forms part of the wider Marubeni strategy to reduce environmental impacts from End-of-Life Tyres and promote sustainability through the tyre and rubber value chain. While millions of tyres are being discarded annually all over the world, the need for innovative recycling solutions becomes increasingly urgent. This is a challenge Marubeni is proud to take on in establishing a sustainable recycling supply chain for tyres.
Global Tyre Disposal: An Emerging Environmental Concern
Over 30 million tyres go to waste every year across the globe. A high proportion of these tyres end up in landfills or are incinerated, causing much harm to the environment. Poorly managed ELTs contribute to soil and water pollution and emit harmful gases when burned. With growing concerns over the problems at hand, countries across the globe are taking a tougher stance on ELT disposal and pushing manufacturers into incorporating more renewable materials.
In particular, the tyre industry is under greater pressure to head in the sustainable practices direction by considering recycling technologies that can turn ELTs into reusable raw materials. This has developed increasing interest in pyrolysis technology where old tyres can be broken down and valuable materials recovered for re-use in the production of new tyres.
Marubeni’s Investment in Green Rubber Energy
The investment of Marubeni into GRE is a strategic move to create a tyre recycling supply chain in Thailand. More than ten years, GRE has been working on tyre recycling technologies by focusing on pyrolysis—a process of decomposition of materials, using high temperatures in the absence of oxygen.
So far, GRE has been able to recover two main products from ELTs through pyrolysis: carbon black, or rCB, and tyre pyrolysis oil, or TPO. Carbon black is a crucial raw material for tyre production, but it always used to be of unsuitable quality for high-added-value applications in tyre production due to contamination. Now, however, GRE has achieved a breakthrough with the production of a more stable and purified form of rCB that already meets the standards required by the tyre manufacturing industry.
The partnership of Marubeni and GRE will establish a comfortable recycling system through which collected ELTs are processed into raw materials with value, such as rCB and TPO, to be fed back into the process of tyre manufacturing; thereby, it will create a closed-loop system with minimal environmental impact from tyre production and disposal.
Supply Chain Development for Sustainable Tyre Recycling
To that end, Marubeni will develop a sustainable tyre recycling supply chain using the company’s widespread global network and know-how. In this regard, B-Quik Co., Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Marubeni, will be engaged in the collection of ELTs in Thailand and their supply to GRE for recycling. In the meantime, Marubeni plans to promote the quality improvement of recycled carbon black jointly with RCB Nanotechnologies GmbH. By improving the quality of rCB, Marubeni wants to extend its use for high-performance tyres and other products from this material.
Besides, Marubeni Techno Rubber Co., Ltd. will promote the sales of recycling materials with big activity by means of its distribution network. A Group’s company will be involved in the integration of rCB and TPO, which GRE produces, into the supply chain of tyre manufacturing with the least disturbances.
The Marubeni Group would further pursue more expansions using the tyre recycling system in Thailand as its model. In fact, the Company projects that replicating this Thai model to other areas such as Japan and Southeast Asia is the ultimate path for successfully attaining a global tyre recycling business. To this end, the concept synergizes with Marubeni’s Mid-term Management Strategy GC2024, which focuses on green growth and sustainability.
Reducing the Environmental Impact of ELTs
This investment by Marubeni in GRE marks an important stride toward a greener future for ELTs. Recovering values of such quality as rCB and TPO, the company diverts tyres away from landfills and incinerators, where they simply add to pollution and waste. These materials are being recycled and put to use again, reducing consumption of virgin raw materials to produce new tyres.
Besides reducing the environmental problems caused by the disposal of ELTs, this recycling effort by Marubeni also contributes to the development towards renewable materials in the tyre and rubber industries. In the future, tyre manufacturers will be under increasing regulatory and consumer pressure to use more sustainable materials; hence, the provision of high-quality recycled materials such as rCB will be critical.
Global Expansion of the Model
While Marubeni’s long-term vision of recycling tires is not confined to Thailand, as the company sees great potential to move its supply chain for recycling into other countries. This could be most possible in areas where ELT disposal is now an emerging problem. It intends to take a leading role in sustainable tyre recycling through the establishment of similar systems in Japan, Southeast Asia, and other important global markets.
Success here will not only ensure a win for the tyre and rubber industry but also for the global initiative of waste reduction and circular economy principles. When Marubeni is contributing through its closed-loop tyre production and disposal system, it is actually building a better future not just for the industry but also for the environment in which we live.
Conclusion
This investment by Marubeni Corporation in Green Rubber Energy Company Limited is excellent and marks another very important step in the roadmap to sustainability for the tyre and rubber industry. To this effect, this will involve the development of a tyre recycling supply chain in Thailand and scale up globally under the drive of Marubeni to meet the ELT-related environmental challenges and promote renewable materials. This initiative is part of Marubeni’s increased commitment to green growth and sustainability under its Mid-term Management Strategy GC2024. The demand for such recyclates is growing, so that Marubeni’s tyre recycling business has the potential to contribute significantly to a reduction in environmental load through waste tyres and the production of tyres globally.
Source: Marubeni Corporation