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INDIAN RUBBER EXPO
France is the highest at 49 per cent followed by the UK on 44 per cent, Scandinavia 42 per cent and the German speaking countries at 41per cent. The figures then start to fall off rapidly with the Iberian
Peninsula on 31 per cent, Italy
sector led by the likes of Marangoni, Kraiburg and Vipal etc. As we shall see shortly, though, the future of independent retreading will depend on how it reacts to the challenge currently being posed by upcoming changes in legislation.
mandatory requirement for retreads to be ‘Type Approved’ or tested in the same way as new tyres.
By way of contrast, it was a legal requirement that all new passenger and commercial tyres sold for use in Europe must have an ‘E’ mark permanently marked on at least one sidewall of the tyre to denote that such tyres have been subjected to appropriate test schedules and are Type Approved. Type Approval of a tyre is a confirmation and an endorsement that the product is suitable for the purpose intended and has conformed to ECE Regulations with respect to performance, dimensions and marking requirements.
With ECE 108/109 when a retreader becomes type approved, he is awarded an “E” number unique to his company, which must be displayed on all tyres he produces. Approval under ECE Regulations 108 and 109 commits retreaders to a number of actions designed to ensure traceable quality
throughout the retreading process.
Firstly, retreaders are obliged to submit written documentation to the Type Approval Authority in support of the process controls and procedures adopted by the production unit. They are further required to display evidence of a comprehensive and demonstrable quality control system. To this end most retread companies are ISO 9001 registered. Registration to ISO 9001 provides independent evidence that the processing company has an appropriate and on-going Quality Management System.
Regardless of this, the Type Approval Authority is entitled to randomly visit any retread producing Company in order to audit the process controls and product quality. Furthermore
they are at liberty to randomly select a number of processed tyres for drum testing (load/speed performance testing) to the same parameters set out in ECE Regulation 30 (passenger tyres) or ECE Regulation 54 (commercial tyres), that is, the same tyre testing regime, which new tyre manufacturers undertake.
In the event of a selected tyre failing the drum test, two further samples of the same specification tyre are tested. If either or both of these second two samples fail, then a final submission of two samples is tested. If either or both of the final two tyres fail, then the approval can be removed! As such, the testing procedure is an effective way of confirming the quality of any given retreader’s product.
The benefits of the introduction of ECE 108 and 109 in Europe have been huge. Poor quality retreaders and those who did not want to invest in the necessar y processes to comply with the legislation have closed
down, raising the overall quality standard across the continent. The legislation has also given the industr y proof of the quality of the retreading process.
ECE 108 and 109 are far from being the only pieces of legislation that affect European retreaders though. Let’s have a look at some of the other laws we have to deal with.
The first of these is the REACH Regulation 2006. REACH stands for Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals and is directly applicable to all EU member states. Annex 17 of this regulation provides a list of chemicals that are subject to restrictions – chemicals that are proven to provide significant risks to human health and the environment.
Included in annex 17 is a restriction of the use of
28 per cent, Benelux 28 per cent, Central and Eastern Europe 24 per cent and Greece and Ireland down on 20 per cent.
The proportion held by the mould cure and pre-cure methods also varies significantly for a wide range of geographical and historical reasons. In the UK, the mould cure share is over 80per cent and the system is also widespread in France, Italy and Spain. Scandinavia, though is 90 per cent pre-cure. Eastern Europe is also largely pre-cure.
Like in North America, the European market has been characterised by a huge consolidation in the number of retreaders in recent years. We have also seen a substantial increase in the influence of the new tyre manufacturers in Europe. Michelin has recently completed a large investment at its retread plant at Stoke-on- Trent in the UK, whilst Continental has parted company with its mould cure retreading partners and is building a mould cure plant of its own in Hannover-Stöcken. Today, all the leading new tyre manufacturers have branded retread programmes of their own - Recamic, Bandag, Nexttread, ContiTread, Novateck. But there is still a relatively strong independent
Legislation, in fact, has been the single biggest influence on the European retreading market over the last ten years so let’s have a closer look at how the EC’s legal framework has affected retreading in that continent
Let’s start with the European retreading standards UNECE 108 and 109, which have led to harmonised requirements and a higher level of safety and environmental protection across the EC. The standard became available for adoption in 1998 and in the UK it became law as of January 1, 2004. It was finally confirmed as law in Europe by the EC’s Council Decision 2006-443 from 13 September 2006.
The legislation meant that retread producers effectively became ‘licensed’ operations, a move which made a considerable contribution towards ensuring that the quality, integrity and performance of retreaded tyres were, at the very least, on a par with that of new tyres.
The introduction of ECE Regulations 108 and 109 revolved around the fact that although retreaded tyres had been manufactured to the requirements national standards such as the BS au 144 series British Standard for many years, there had traditionally been no
22 Retreading Business