Life cycle assessment of nine recovery methods for end-of-life tyres

Aliapur was created in 2002 by tyre manufacturers as a means of providing a collective response to the regulatory obligations in force in France on the management of used tyres. Since 2004, Aliapur has implemented a major industrial research programme to support the development and optimisation of long-term, diversified recovery methods. At a time when several used tyre recovery methods have achieved a certain maturity, Aliapur decided to carry out a comparative environmental evaluation of the various recovery alternatives. In addition to comparing the different alternatives, this environmental evaluation aimed at identifying the strengths and weaknesses of each recovery method, and of the management of used tyres as a whole. This evaluation was based on the Life Cycle Assessment approach and conformed to the methodological prescriptions developed in the ISO 14 040 (2006a) and ISO 14 044 (2006b) standards. It was carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers Ecobilan (2009) a consulting firm specialising in life cycle assessments, and was reviewed by a committee of European LCA experts and interested parties Lecouls and Klopffer (2010).