Michelin: WhiteCycle, a European project to recycle complex waste and reintroduce PET into industry

Manufacture Française des Pneumatiques Michelin (SIREN 855200507), a subsidiary of the Michelin group, is headquartered in Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme). Michelin coordinates the European WhiteCycle project, a research and innovation initiative dedicated to recycling complex waste containing polyethylene terephthalate (PET).

The project tackles a major industrial problem: part of plastic and textile waste cannot be recycled efficiently by conventional processes, because it is made up of several combined materials, fibers, coatings or components that are difficult to separate.

The project's interest for Michelin is twofold: developing new recycling solutions for its own products and contributing to building a European industrial supply chain for high-value-added recycled materials. Carbios (SIREN 531530228, also a beneficiary of a separate LIFE grant documented elsewhere in Capital OS) takes part in WhiteCycle as an enzymatic recycling specialist.

Michelin needed to develop, together with complementary partners, a complete value-recovery chain for complex waste (tires, flexible pipes, multi-component textiles) — a technological challenge that exceeds the capabilities of a single company and requires a consortium bringing together sorting, separation, enzymatic depolymerization and repolymerization.

WhiteCycle stands for Upscaling of Innovative Processes for the Recycling of PET from Complex Wastes. The project covers three major categories of waste: end-of-life tires, industrial flexible pipes, and multi-component textiles containing PET.

The goal is to develop a complete value-recovery chain, from the collection and sorting of waste to the production of a new polymer that can be turned into fibers and reused in industrial products.

Two central technological innovations: (1) identifying, sorting and concentrating PET — the project aims to raise the PET content of complex waste streams to up to 80% through recognition, sorting and separation technologies; (2) depolymerizing PET using enzymes — the enzymatic process breaks PET down into monomers, which can then be purified and repolymerized to produce new PET.

The project plans to demonstrate the feasibility of the recycling chain on three applications: 100 tires, 1,500 meters of flexible pipes, and 400 m² of multi-component textile (intended in particular for the manufacture of technical garments), along with life-cycle studies, production cost estimates and industrial scale-up work.

Horizon Europe programme, innovation action (Horizon Innovation Action), grant agreement no. 101059639, period from 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2027. Coordinator: Manufacture Française des Pneumatiques Michelin. The consortium brings together 17 participants including Carbios (enzymatic recycling), IFTH (textile expertise), CNRS (research and separation processes), TLC Synergies and Estato (waste collection and preparation), Kordsa (fiber processing), Iris Technology Solutions, Axelera (coordination of the industrial ecosystem) and several universities and research centers (University of Poitiers, Université Clermont Auvergne, Høgskulen på Vestlandet).