What are rubber granules from end-of-life tyres (ELT)?
Rubber granules from end-of-life tyres are produced from tyres that are no longer in service. ELT stands for End-of-Life Tyres, the established term for tyres that have reached the end of their usable life. The resulting granules are a recycled raw material.
Collected car and lorry tyres provide the feedstock for processing. The tyres are shredded before the steel and textile fibres are separated. The remaining rubber is processed into black granules with a range of particle sizes, then separated into defined grades.
Tyres contain mainly styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) and natural rubber (NR), so both types of rubber are present in the recovered granules. The term SBR rubber granules is common in the trade, but it does not make the origin clear, because SBR can also be newly produced and processed directly. By contrast, the term rubber granules from end-of-life tyres explicitly identifies granules recovered from used tyres.
ELT rubber granules are used in floor coverings, including sports flooring and safety tiles, as well as in road construction, building products and technical rubber goods. They are also used as the feedstock for WARCO tiles made from rubber granules bound with polyurethane. Recycling keeps the rubber in use for longer and can reduce demand for newly produced rubber.