Scrap Tyre Recyclers Meet in Schwerin to Find Feasible Solutions

Under the headline “Recycling von Altreifen in Deutschland – Aktuelle Lage und Möglichkeiten für die Zukunft” (“Scrap Tyre Recycling in Germany – The Current Situation and Future Possibilities”) a two-day conference was held in the banqueting hall of Schwerin Castle in mid-October. Joint hosts of the first meeting of this kind on German soil were the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Ministry of the Environment and the European Tyre Recycling Association “ETRA”. The conference in Schwerin is part of a series of European meetings organised as Regional Information Briefings by ETRA for the airing and discussion of current questions and problems in the tyre recycling industry with the object of eventually finding common solutions.

The programme was opened with a presentation covering the current situation of the scrap tyre recycling industry in Germany. This was followed by reports/discussions on the current state of the recycling technology as well as the opportunities for opening new markets for recycled scrap tyre products, in which almost 100 experts from the areas of tyre trade and disposal, retreading, material extraction, construction industry/road building, technology, equipment industry, waste disposal took part together with representatives of the civil authorities. In the course of the conference it became clear, however, that there was still a widespread lack of technological know-how and a considerable ignorance about how to market the recycled products.