Rubber Journal Asia Industry News plant, this time in Visakhapatnam, southeast Andhra Pradesh, India. Construction on the US$165 million manufacturing plant is set to begin this year. The plant will span 344,000 sq ft and will produce 55 tonnes/day of tyres from the first quarter of 2023. Once completed, it is expected that the Visakhapatnam plant will raise Yokohama’s overall production capacity for off-road tyres (OTR) to 480 tonnes/day. It will be Yokohama’s eight OTR tyre plant, which include three OTR tyre facilities in Japan, Israel and Vietnam. ATG expanded its Dahej production facility in 2018 by 60%.
• Given the challenging European passenger tyre market, Japan’s Bridgestone is to close its Bethune plant in France by 2021. It will impact 863 employees. The passenger tyre market has seen its volumes stabilise over the last few years (average annual growth < 1%) while competition from low-cost Asian brands continues to increase (market share of 6% in 2000 increased to 25% in 2018) leading to general production overcapacity. Over the last years, Bridgestone says it has taken several measures to increase the competitiveness of the Bethune plant. • German car parts maker Continental is to close
a tyre plant in Aachen, Germany, by the end of 2021, resulting in the loss of 1,800 jobs. The Covid-19 pandemic has “reinforced” a decline in the tyre sector that has been years in the making, with trade union IG BCE, which represents the company’s rubber division employees, stating that the factory was “in the black” up until the spring of 2020. The Hanover-based company earlier said that it would expand its restructuring programme, with around 30,000 jobs globally to be “modified, relocated or made redundant”, including 13,000 in Germany, to save more than EUR1 billion a year from 2023.
Rubber Chemicals
Circular approach to redeeming the value of tyres The tyre industry is reducing the
Research (NILU), in collaboration with Akvaplan NIVA and Trondheim-based research organisation, SINTEF, on CRGs applied to artificial turfs used in playgrounds, running tracks and walkways in Norway.
environmental impact of tyres with a
circular approach to managing waste tyres and enhancing the performance of new
tyres, according to Angelica Buan in this report.
A cocktail of chemicals in an old tyre After microplastics found in products containing plastics, all eyes are now on end-of-life (ELT) rubber tyres, which are also found to be sources of microplastics and chemicals, including fillers, stabilisers, pigments, oils, resins, heavy metal additives and other compounds. Crumb rubber granulate (CRG), produced from ELTs, for example, contains organic chemicals such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), phthalates, benzothiazoles, bisphenols and heavy metals, which can leach to the environment. This is a focus of the recent study done by the Norwegian Institute for Air
Crumb rubber granulates obtained from waste tyres contain organic chemicals, heavy metals, and compounds that can leach to the environment, according to a study by NILU
2 SEPTEMBER 2020
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