On March 28, 2025, EU Parliamentarian Prof. Dr. Andrea Wechsler welcomed an AZuR delegation to her Ludwigsburg office to learn about the opportunities, advantages and threats of certified waste tire disposal as the basis of the tire circular economy.
Ms. Wechsler is committed to a Europe that integrates economics and ecology. As a member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI), Wechsler is committed to ensuring that Europe's climate targets are defined realistically and can be achieved in harmony with economic strength and social justice. Accordingly, the EU parliamentarians were interested in the AZuR circular economy's successful model for the tire recycling industry, whose advantages, opportunities, and threats were presented by Hanna Raff (KURZ Karkassenhandel) and Christina Guth (ZARE).
The tire/recycling industry is already demonstrating how circular economy can work successfully. Sustainable new tires are kept on the road as long as possible through repair and retreading, and then kept in the cycle through material or chemical recycling. This avoids hundreds of thousands of tons of waste annually in Germany alone, reduces CO₂ emissions, and lessens dependence on strategic raw materials.
Ms. Wechsler expressed particular interest in certified waste tire disposal. A functioning circular economy begins at the end of a product's life – with proper disposal. By collecting, testing, and forwarding used tires to retreaders and recyclers, waste tire disposal companies make a decisive contribution to the sustainability of the entire tire/recycling industry.
Wechsler sees an opportunity to address the issue of waste tire disposal within the framework of the EU Ecodesign Regulation. This regulation aims to ensure that products last longer, use energy and resources more efficiently, are easier to repair and recycle, and contain more recycled materials.
