Bridgestone is aiming for one of the biggest breakthroughs in tyre recycling: turning old tyres back into new tyres.
For decades, most end-of-life tyres have been downcycled into products such as tyre-derived fuel (TDF), playground surfaces, sports fields or crumb rubber for civil engineering projects. While these applications help divert tyres from landfill, they don’t create a truly circular manufacturing system.
Bridgestone is taking a different approach.
Through its EVERTIRE INITIATIVE, the company is investing in technology designed to recover valuable raw materials from used tyres and return them to the tyre manufacturing process. This approach, known as horizontal recycling, represents one of the most ambitious circular economy projects currently underway in the global tyre industry.
What Is Horizontal Tyre Recycling?
What Is Horizontal Tyre Recycling?
Most tyre recycling today is considered downcycling.
A worn tyre may become:
- tyre-derived fuel
- rubber crumb
- playground surfacing
- asphalt additives
- equestrian surfaces
- moulded rubber products
These applications recover value from waste tyres, but eventually the material reaches the end of its useful life.
Horizontal recycling aims to break that cycle.
Instead of producing lower-value products, it seeks to recover materials that can be used to manufacture new tyres, creating a genuine circular economy where tyres become raw materials for future tyre production.
This has long been considered one of the tyre industry’s biggest technical challenges because modern tyres contain a complex mixture of natural rubber, synthetic rubber, carbon black, steel, textiles and chemical additives.
Recovering those materials at a quality suitable for new tyre manufacturing has proven extremely difficult.
Bridgestone’s New Pilot Plant
At the start of 2025, Bridgestone announced it will construct a pilot demonstration plant at its Seki Plant in Japan dedicated to the precise pyrolysis of end-of-life tyres. Construction began in late 2025, with operations targeted to commence in 2027. The facility is designed to process approximately 7,500 tonnes of end-of-life tyres per year.
Unlike conventional pyrolysis systems that often focus on fuel recovery, Bridgestone’s objective is much broader.
The company aims to recover:
- tyre-derived oil
- recovered carbon black (rCB)
- chemical feedstocks suitable for new tyre production
These recovered materials will become the foundation for future tyre manufacturing rather than simply alternative fuels.
Why Precise Pyrolysis Matters
Pyrolysis is not a new technology.
It involves heating tyres in an oxygen-free environment, causing the rubber compounds to decompose into reusable products including oil, gas, carbon black and steel.
The challenge has always been quality.
If temperatures, residence time and operating conditions cannot be tightly controlled, the recovered carbon black and oil may not meet the performance standards required for premium tyre manufacturing.
Bridgestone’s project focuses on precise pyrolysis, where operating conditions are carefully controlled to maximise both the quality and consistency of recovered materials. The company believes this will enable the production of tyre-derived oil and recovered carbon black suitable for further refining and eventual reuse in new tyres.
More Than Just a Recycling Plant
This initiative forms part of Bridgestone’s broader EVERTIRE INITIATIVE, a long-term strategy focused on commercialising tyre recycling through partnerships across the supply chain.
Rather than working alone, Bridgestone has partnered with Japanese energy company ENEOS to develop chemical recycling technologies capable of converting tyre-derived oil into petrochemical feedstocks such as butadiene, one of the key building blocks used to manufacture synthetic rubber.
At the same time, Bridgestone is collaborating with Tokai Carbon to improve the quality of recovered carbon black so that it can eventually perform at levels comparable to virgin carbon black used in premium tyres.
This collaborative approach demonstrates that tyre-to-tyre recycling is not a single technology but an entire circular manufacturing ecosystem.
Why This Matters for the Industry
Many sustainability announcements focus on reducing emissions during manufacturing, increasing renewable energy use or improving operational efficiency.
While these initiatives are important, they do not fundamentally change what happens to tyres once they reach the end of their service life.
Bridgestone’s initiative addresses the problem at its source.
If successful, the project could reduce reliance on virgin fossil-based raw materials while increasing the amount of recycled content incorporated into future tyre production.
For an industry that manufactures more than one billion tyres annually, even modest improvements in recycled material content could deliver substantial environmental benefits over time.
TreadTorque Circularity Impact Score (TCIS)
The TreadTorque Circularity Impact Score (TCIS) evaluates the likely contribution of an initiative to advancing the circular tyre economy.
Bridgestone receives a score of 86/100 because it addresses sustainability at the highest point in the value chain: the manufacture of new tyres.
Unlike initiatives focused on waste collection, awareness campaigns or downstream recycling applications, this project aims to recover materials that can replace virgin raw materials in future tyre production.
Why it scored highly
- Targets true tyre-to-tyre circularity
- Supported by long-term research and development
- Strong partnerships across multiple industries
- Potential to reduce demand for virgin fossil-derived materials
- Demonstrates commercial-scale ambition
Why it isn’t higher
The project remains a pilot demonstration plant.
Commercial success will depend on proving that recovered materials can consistently meet the performance, quality and economic requirements of large-scale tyre manufacturing.
Until those outcomes are demonstrated at industrial scale, some uncertainty remains.
The tyre industry has spent decades improving fuel efficiency, rolling resistance and manufacturing sustainability.
The next frontier is circular manufacturing.
Rather than asking how tyres can be recycled after use, companies like Bridgestone are asking a more important question: How can old tyres become the raw materials for new tyres?
If that question can be answered at commercial scale, it could fundamentally change how the global tyre industry manages resources for decades to come.
Bridgestone’s horizontal recycling initiative is still in its early stages, but it represents one of the clearest examples yet of a manufacturer investing in genuine circularity rather than simply improving waste management.
What is tyre-to-tyre recycling?
Tyre-to-tyre recycling, also known as horizontal recycling, is the process of recovering valuable materials from end-of-life tyres so they can be reused in the manufacture of new tyres. Unlike traditional recycling methods that produce lower-value products, tyre-to-tyre recycling aims to create a true circular economy by keeping materials in continuous use.
What is horizontal recycling?
Horizontal recycling refers to recycling a product back into the same type of product. In the tyre industry, this means recovering materials such as carbon black and tyre-derived oil from used tyres and using them to manufacture new tyres rather than downcycling them into other products like playground surfaces or tyre-derived fuel.
What is pyrolysis?
Pyrolysis is a thermal recycling process that heats end-of-life tyres in an oxygen-free environment. The process breaks the tyre down into valuable products including recovered carbon black, tyre-derived oil, steel and gas, all of which can be reused in various industrial applications.
Is pyrolysis already widely used?
Pyrolysis technology is used in several countries, but many facilities still focus on producing fuels or industrial feedstocks. Bridgestone’s project is different because it is specifically designed to recover materials suitable for manufacturing new tyres, making it one of the industry’s most advanced circular economy initiatives.
What is the TreadTorque Circularity Impact Score (TCIS)?
The TreadTorque Circularity Impact Score (TCIS) is an independent editorial rating developed by TreadTorque to assess the potential contribution of sustainability initiatives to the circular tyre economy. The score helps readers quickly identify projects with the greatest potential to drive meaningful industry change and distinguish them from initiatives with more limited environmental impact.
