From today and until 5th April, Ecopneus will be  in 12 Italian cities with a whole car of the TrenoVerde dedicated to rubber recycled from End-of-Life tyres. Sports surfaces, football pitches, silent and long-lasting asphalts, playgrounds: many useful applications for the city which are also sustainable and at people-oriented.

140million Euros were saved by Italy and 350 thousand tonnes of CO2 were avoided thanks to the recycling of End-of-Life tyres carried out by Ecopneus in 2018

TrenoVerde_carrozza EcopneusHow can End-of-Life tyres fight climate change, limit the use of fossil resources and of energy, and contribute to make our cities more sustainable and “smarter”? 

From tomorrow until 20th February, at the Central Railway station of Palermo, adults and children will find an answer to this question visiting the car set up by Ecopneus on the TrenoVerde (GreenTrain). This is the historical itinerating campaign of Legambiente and Ferrovie dello Stato (the Italian National Railways). Ecopneus is a main partner of the event. This year the campaign is dedicated to a great global challenge: leave the era of fossil resources and stop climate change. The main topics for the reaching of this important objective will be discussed during the 12 stops: from sustainable mobility to energy efficiency, up to the use of renewable sources and recycled materials for a better quality of life in our cities.

The Treno Verde is open from Monday to Saturday from 8:30 to 14:00 for school bookings and from 16:00 to 19:00 for all visitors. the Train is open from 10 to 13 on Sundays.

The Ecopneus recycled rubber car

Tappe TrenoVerde2019

The TrenoVerde2019 stops

The third car of the train is fully dedicated to the chain of End-of-Life Tyre (ELT) recovery and recycling of Ecopneus. The rubber a tyre is made of is, indeed, a material of great quality used to make “silent”, safe and long-lasting asphalts, football pitches, multi-purpose sports surfaces, soundproofing panels, urban furniture objects, energy, and not only. Indeed, ELTs can be sent to energy recovery as a replacement of fossil fuels in those plants that require extremely high energy use, such as the ones for the production of cement. Thanks to lower CO2 emissions and having the same calorific power, ELTs allow to reduce the overall plant emissions. Moreover, it is possible to recover the process residues as new materials. However, the effort of Ecopneus has always focused on the applications of recycled rubber, a single destination that is capable of valorising the characteristics of this special resource and give a concrete contribution to the circular economy in Italy.

The Ecopneus car of recycled rubber

Inside the car, the visitors will find a comfortable floor made with over 1,000 kg of recycled rubber, which has been shaped and coloured to reproduce some of its main applications, such as: tennis courts, cycle lanes, or athletics tracks. Illustrations, games, and installations will lead children and adults along an educative path to personally understand the importance of a correct recycling of ELTs and the multiple applications of recycled rubber.

Giovanni Corbetta, General Manager of Ecopneus stated: “Taking part to the TrenoVerde journey – for Ecopneus, it is its third year in a row – is an excellent occasion to show the value and the importance of ELT recycling to the many students and citizens involved, by the means of many fields of applications of this amazing material: from anti-shock mats for playgrounds for the youngest children, to roads; from football and volleyball courts of the school gyms, to bollards; from benches and flower boxes, to insulation materials for the building sector. We dedicate great attention to education, because the culture of environmental protection must be a central value, especially for the younger generations, who are tomorrow’s adult citizens”.

Ecopneus managed 240,539 tonnes of ELTs in 2018.  This is equivalent to the weight of 26 million automobile tyres. If we were to put them in a row, we could create a line that is over 13,000 km long: 10 times the distance from Milan to Palermo! thanks to the use of recycled rubber, the emission into the atmosphere of over 350,00 tonnes of CO2 equivalent was avoided. this is equal to the emissions of over 230thousand automobiles, that travel 10 thousand km on a year. Moreover, our Country saved over 140 million euros.

The stops of the TrenoVerde 2019  

the TrenoVerde leaves today, 15th February, from Rome; it will then reach Palermo (18th-20th February), Bari (22nd-24th February), Naples (26th-28th February). it will then go back to Rome (2nd-4th March). The tour of Italy will then head to Pescara (6th-8th March), Arezzo (10th-12thMarch), Civitanova Marche (14th-16th March), Rimini (18th-20th March), Padua (22nd-24th March), Genoa (26th-28th March), Turin (30th March – 1st April) and will end in Milan (3rd-5th April).

The Photos of the inauguration of the TrenoVerde 2019