End-of-Life Tyres (abbreviated to ELTs) are the waste generated when a tyre is removed from a car, motorcycles or heavy-goods vehicle and, which having reached the end of its life cannot be reused on other forms of transport, or retreaded.
If correctly collected and managed, ELTs can become a useful resource because within the tyre there is rubber, steel and textile fibres that can be recycled into secondary raw materials. Alternatively, ELTs can be sent to energy recovery facilities to provide fuel for incinerators or cement kilns.
The Italian laws distinguish between tyres coming from the tyre change market, such as those generated from replacements undertaken at tyre centres and those coming from vehicles in wrecking yards. EcoTyre operates in both sectors, but while EcoTyre works independently in the first case, in the case of vehicle wrecking yards, it performs its collection activities on behalf of the ELT Committee established by the Italian Automobile Association ACI.