Continental launches the first polyester tires made from recycled PET bottles

Continental is the first tire manufacturer to soon launch mass production of recycled polyester fibers made from PET plastic bottles in a new process. The new material will initially be used for the selected sizes of Continental’s PremiumContact 6 and EcoContact 6 summer tires, as well as the AllSeasonContact tire. It completely replaces the conventional polyester in the casing of the selected tires. A set of standard car tires uses the material from about 40 recycled PET bottles.

In September 2021, Continental unveiled for the first time ContiRe.Tex technology developed with internal means. It uses polyester fiber, obtained from recycled PET bottles without intermediate chemical steps and not recycled in any other way. This makes the technology much more efficient than other standard methods for processing PET bottles into high-performance polyester fibers.

All ContiRe.Tex tires currently produced for the next launch phase are from the tire factory in Lousado, Portugal. Tires with ContiRe.Tex technology have a special sidewall logo (“Contains recycled material”).