Background About nine million end-of-life vehicles (ELV) per year are recycled in the EU, while around 15% of ELV materials are still considered waste and end in landfills. End-of-life tyres (ELT) are one of the main sources of waste of ELVs, generating in Europe around 2.6 million tonnes/year, 95% might be recovered as reusable material (39%) or energy (37%). This is in line with the revised EU End-of-Life Vehicles Directive (2011/37/EU) which now requires the reuse and/or recovery of almost all used tyres. ELT could be a source of several valuable secondary raw materials. Typically, the output of the treatment process of ELT is shredded material of various sizes and types, depending on the intended use, including rubber chips or granules, steel fibres and textile fibre. Unlike rubber and steel materials that are currently being reused in various fields, textiles represent a special waste to be disposed of and the use of ELT in this area is quite limited due to two main reasons: first, the fibre coming from the current treatment plants contains a high amount of rubber (45% by weight) trapped between the meshes, that limits its possible re-use; and secondly, there are currently no useful and affordable applications for fibre re-use that makes recycling worthwhile. Objectives The project REFIBRE aims to overcome the two main existing barriers limiting ELT fibre recycling. Its overall objective is that 100% of the ELT fibre material is transformed into a useful secondary raw material within a ‘circular economy’ approach. Specific objectives of the project are to: Design, construct and validate an innovative industrial pilot plant to treat, clean and process ELT fibres, making them recyclable and re-usable in two applications: reinforced plastic compounds and bituminous mix for new asphalts; Produce new materials (plastic compounds and asphalts) that have been modified with the fibre and demonstrate their superior technical features and economic viability compared to traditional ones; Finalise quantitative assessment of the environmental impact of the process involving LCA and LCC, proving the cost and environmental effectiveness of the proposed new solution; and Assess quantitatively the environmental impact indicators by LCA and LCC in order to prove cost/environmental effectiveness of the proposed new solutions. Expected results: Recycling of 1 200 tonnes/year of ELT-derived fibre (100% of the material), leading to the complete elimination of recovery scraps and a net reduction of 200 tonnes/year landfill waste and 1 000 tonne/year waste that goes to incineration; Savings of around 1 000 t/year of CO2; Savings of 13 000 kg/year of SO2 equivalent; Savings of 1 600 kg/year of fine powders (PM2.5, PM5, PM10); and Reduced use of virgin raw materials derived from petroleum, such as polymers, bitumen, reinforcements and additives for the production of plastic compounds or asphalts (The use of recycled fibre would allow for instance produce 6 000 tonnes/year of plastic Polypropylene (PP) compounds sufficient to make about 400 000 bins with 240 litre volume for waste garbage collection.