Eco-Friendly

Pirelli reveals how it is helping protect the environment

Pirelli Tyres has revealed how it has adopted a ‘green technology’ programme to protect the environment.

Since 2007, the Italian tyres manufacturers began to eliminate aromatic oils from some of its road and competition tyres and since 1 January, 2010, as required by European legislation, all of its road and motorsport tyres are produced without aromatic oils.

Pirelli has also highlighted the ecological disposal of its Formula One tyres once they have been used. After each race, all the tyres are transported back to Pirelli’s facility at Didcot, United Kingdom, where they, along with other road car tyres, are finely shredded at a nearby plant.

The shredded tyres form small pellets, which are then burnt at extremely high temperatures as fuel for cement factories. The high temperatures, in excess of 1400 degrees centigrade, mean that no noxious fumes are released and the only particles that remain is a very fine, non-poisonous ash.

In total, Pirelli will dispose of up to 80,000 competition tyres this year using this method – which has been adopted in other countries throughout the world also.

“The environment has always been extremely high on our agenda at Pirelli. The way we dispose of the tyres is firm evidence of this…” Paul Hembery, Pirelli’s motorsport director commented.

Tags: ecological disposal, Formula One tyres