The ECO-RUBBER consortium has released the initial results of its industrialization process project at the Instituto de Biomecánica de Valencia (IBV) in Spain. IBV and AIMPLAS - Technologic Institutes along with RECIPNEU and BERLÁ have set up the consortium.
The project aims to encourage the use of recycled rubber as raw material for producing urban innovations, including high-quality furniture. Recycled rubber products are a sustainable and ecologic alternative to products made from virgin material. The project makes use of a new sintered process to fabricate urban furniture with high-quality.
The new process adapts the characteristics of recycled rubber to the furniture being made. The project showcased the advantages of recycled rubber for urban furniture through a bollard, as it demonstrated material elasticity to reduce injury due to accidents.
The European Association of Tyres and Rubber Manufacturers (ETRMA) has revealed that 3.4 Mt of used tyres were accumulated in the 27 EU countries during the year 2007. Of these 32% was used for incineration, while another 38% was recycled. In Spain only 51% of the 195.000 t of tyres were recycled, according to SIGNUS.
The European Commission is funding the project through the Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation on its CIP Eco-innovation program. The CRIOSINTER FP6 CRAFT project forms the basis for the ECO-RUBBER project, which demonstrated the viability of using 95% of recycled rubber to achieve sufficient functional properties. The project also demonstrated the reduction in environmental impact by more than 70% when compared to natural rubber.
The crumb recycled rubber that was obtained from different types of grinding processes was analyzed and the best rubber fractions were selected for the sintering manufacturing process. IBV is leading the endeavor to achieve an eco-label for the urban furniture product. It would identify the benefits to the environment and promote a communication strategy for increasing the acceptance of recycled materials in high consumer markets.