Michelin India recently conducted a conference of media where Vice President of Technical and Scientific Communication at Michelin Group, Mr. Dominique Aimon, talked about company's 4R strategy. The 4R strategy signifies company's objective to deal with issues such as eco-friendliness, safety and cleanliness. During the conference Mr. Dominique discussed about impact of human activities on environment that is leading to depletion of natural resources, it has been also observed that there is an abrupt change in climate and human health is being affected adversely along with biodiversity. Demand for vehicles presently is high and will further surge in upcoming years that will precede to high and low pressure creation amongst car tyres leading to increase in carbon dioxide emissions. Around 800 millions have already been observed across the world by 2000 and it is likely that the number of vehicles observed will increase substantially by 2050.
Around 75 per cent of component used in making tyre is derived from fossil fuel, hence this indicates at the huge dependency on fossil fuel for developing a tyre. Hence it becomes a matter of concern that by year 2050 availability of fossil fuel based components used in tyres will be circumscribed due to probable lack of its basic material fossil fuel. Henceforth, Michelin has structured the new 4R strategy that comprise of reduce, reuse, recycle and renewable to thwart this situation.
Reduce - implies at the need to develop tyres lighter by 4 to 7 per cent so that lesser material is used for building tyres. Another benefit of developing lighter tyres is that it increases their longevity.
Reuse - It indicates at encouraging repairing and regrooving of usage of old tyres. Specifically for earth-mover tyres, safety is extremely vital and regrooving will largely help to decrease the weight.
Recycle - Material recovery is thriving in India, while the other kind of recovery called, Energy recovery enables to recover around 55 per cent to 70 per cent of energy which can further be used in steel industry, cement factories and thermal power stations.
Renewable - Michelin will continue to use natural rubber , while the company is also working on developing new ways of manufacturing rubber from Biomass. The company has already commenced three projects with Amyris, Biobutterfly and with Helio Compond 4G. By breaking Sulphur bonds in rubber with the use of microbes rubber equivalents can be produced in coming time.
