Bekaert commences certified recycled steel deliveries

Steel wire firm Bekaert shares that it has obtained the first third-party certificates for its tyre reinforcement with high recycled steel content and has delivered the initial batches of this steel to Bridgestone Corporation. According to the company, high recycled content halves the CO2 footprint of its product, and such certification helps meet demand from customers and end markets while addressing a “critical challenge in the industry.”

“There are many claims about circularity of materials in the tyre industry, but lack of clear definitions and standards can lead to doubt on the validity of those claims,” says Heiko Isselee, Bekaert’s Innovation Platform manager Recycled Steel. “This third-party certification of both Bekaert and our wire rod supplier enables us to provide our customers with a guarantee of compliance of the recycled content claims based on recognised industry standards. This certificate allows customers to confidently include the recycled content in the Bekaert products to the tally of recycled content in their tyres.”

Traceable content

Bekaert’s tyre reinforcement has a minimum recycled content of 50 per cent for tyre cord and 70 per cent for bead wire. The company states that the rigorous processes at the supplier’s wire rod factory and at the Bekaert steel cord plant allow it to trace the content in the composition and separate this material from others in all steps of production, storage, and transport. Bekaert can therefore guarantee that the steel cord and bead wire it supplies to customers contain the declared amount of recycled steel.

Deliveries of third-party certified recycled steel to Bridgestone represent a pilot run, and Bekaert considers this “the first step toward setting a new industry standard for recycled content in tyre reinforcement.” The plan now is to make certified tyre reinforcement with high recycled content “available to our customers across the globe.”