Pang Liwei, CNCIC

China's waste tires will reach 20 million tons in coming five years

China has become a major consumer of synthetic rubber in the world in recent years. With the growing number of vehicles year by year, the consumption of tires is rising rapidly, which gives rise to an increase in the number of waste tires. The production of waste tires was 10.85 million tons in 2013. China produced about 380 million waste tires in 2018, equivalent to about 14.59 million tons; about 330 million tires in 2019, equivalent to about 13.8 million tons; the output of waste tires recovered slightly to about 14.2 million tons in 2020, and the production of waste tires is expected to reach 20 million tons in the next five years (see Figure 1 for details).

Figure 1: Chinese waste tire production

The annual compound growth rate of China's waste tire production was 4.3% on average from 2013 to 2018, and had a slight decline in 2019. The waste tire production is expected to grow at a rate of 4%-7% in the next five years. To sum up, the adoption of reclaimed waste tires can create new opportunities while improving the environment.

Status quo of reclaimed rubber market

About 57% of waste tires are used in the field of reclaimed rubber. With the continuous improvement in new processes and technologies, the production of reclaimed rubber in China is expanding. The output of reclaimed rubber in China was about 3.8 million tons in 2013, according to some published data, and increased to 4.8 million tons in 2017 before a fallback in 2018.China's consumption of reclaimed rubber is largely balanced with its output (see Figure 2 for details). The domestic reclaimed rubber production is mainly located in Pingyao and Fenyang of Shanxi, Yutian and Cangzhou of Hebei, Nantong of Jiangsu, Wenzhou and Ningbo of Zhejiang. There are more than 600 reclaimed rubber producers, most of which are small sized, which indicates a low industrial concentration. 

Figure 2: Production, consumption and market scale of reclaimed rubber in China

Tire Industry Policies issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology put forward that reclaimed rubber, natural rubber and synthetic rubber are all the main raw materials of the rubber industry, and this has underlined the presence of reclaimed rubber in the industry and speeded up its development. Nowadays, the reclaimed rubber market is on its fast track to the development, with growing market scale and broad market prospects. According to published data, China's reclaimed rubber market was valued at about RMB49.16 billion in 2019 and RMB56.68 billion in 2020. At present, domestic reclaimed rubber is mainly used in the production of bicycle tires, automobile tires, hose tapes and rubber shoes, and will be gradually applied in other industries in line with the technological innovation in the future. The product has been used in the fields of waterproof asphalt, building materials, and interior decoration of automobiles in the past two years.

Comprehensive utilization of waste rubber yet to be exploited

How to use waste rubber comprehensively has become a long-term development strategy for protecting environment and promoting recycling and reuse of rubber resources in China, which is backed by the government with supportive policies. At present, the recycling of rubber is the main way to realize the comprehensive utilization of waste rubber in China. In 2020, the government rolled out corresponding policies (see Table 1 for details) to encourage the utilization of waste rubber and promote the transformation and upgrading of the industry, while working out the targets of the comprehensive utilization of waste rubber during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025) so as to give a stronger push for the resource utilization and harmless disposal of waste tires.

The 14th Five-Year Plan clearly formulated establishing a perfect standard system: to prepare and adjust quality standards for tire retreading, rubber recycling, rubber powder, thermal cracking and rubber-renewable products, to strengthen the formulation of standards for reclaimed products, R&D and promotion of new products; to promote the production and application of reclaimed rubber for small tires so as to solve the difficulty in the production of reclaimed rubber for small tires; to set up an evaluation standard system for reclaimed rubber product lineup, promote the industry to establish a standardized product quality control system and expand the application fields of reclaimed products by cooperation; to encourage and guide both upstream and downstream  producers to tie up closely to support R&D of key common technologies in the fields of tire production and waste tire recycling, and to cultivate enterprises covering both tire production and recycling and comprehensive utilization of waste tires to enhance the worldwide competitiveness.

With the rollout of national policies, more and more enterprises attach importance to the reuse of waste rubber. Some tire enterprises show intentions to step into the reclaimed rubber industry. The existing reclaimed rubber enterprises are more committed to the environmental protection and clean production, and the corporate upgrading and transformation as well. At the same time, environment-friendly reclaimed rubber will become the core product, and hence producers will gear up R&D in the grade, such as developing environment-friendly rubber softeners and eliminating rubber softeners prepared by toxic and harmful substances such as coal tar.

China, as a big consumer of synthetic rubber, will become one of the major countries producing and using reclaimed rubber. According to statistics, however, only 1/3 of China's waste tires are reclaimed, and about 66% remained underutilized. In the future, supported by the national policies of circular economy, carbon neutralization and carbon emissions, there will be broader development room for the reuse of waste rubber and the production of reclaimed rubber.