Michelin: The Secret Microplastics Crisis Inside Tyres

Each year, six million tonnes of microplastics come from tyre wear according to research from Imperial College London.

Euro 7 regulation, set to come into force in November 2026, sets requirements for vehicles, brake systems and tires and aims to limit this pollution. 

Tyre giant Michelin is urging policymakers to adopt real-world tyre wear testing under this new regulation.

Cyrille Roget, Michelin’s Group Technical and Innovation Communications Director, shares his expertise with Sustainability Magazine.

What are tyre emissions and why are they often overlooked? 

Tyre and road wear particles (TRWP) are generated by the friction, or abrasion, between tyres and road surfaces – a result of the tyre’s grip on the road, needed for safe driving. Abrasion levels depend on driving habits, road type, and tyre pressure. 

While TRWP is a relatively new topic for the media and scientific community, it has long been a focus for the tyre industry. As a co-founder of the Tire Industry Project (TIP), Michelin has supported independent TRWP studies since 2005 (financed by the TIP). 

For over 20 years, Michelin has worked to reduce abrasion through advanced materials and efficient design, cutting TRWP emissions by 5% between 2015 and 2020. Beyond TRWP, minimising raw material use and environmental impact is central to Michelin’s strategy and identity.

How is Michelin approaching tyre emissions differently?

Michelin continues to reduce wear particle emissions and develop more sustainable materials. It created SAMPLE, a system that measures light particles emitted by tyres and quantifies those likely to become airborne.

Together with CNRS (the French National Centre for Scientific Research) and the University of Clermont Auvergne, Michelin also founded BioDLab to study how tyre wear particles biodegrade and are absorbed in the environment.

Michelin’s efforts deliver top results: it ranked first in 29 of 35 DEKRA tests (2013–2018) comparing 2,000 tyres, and led ADAC tests in 2022 and 2025 across 163 tyres. The 2022 ADAC study also showed that tyres with the lowest particle emissions achieved the highest safety performance.

What impact does Euro 7 regulation have on tyre emissions and what is Michelin’s stance on it?

Every year, road transport in Europe generates almost 500,000 tonnes of wear particles from tyres. Adopted in April 2024, the Euro 7 regulation represents a major step forward, by introducing for the first time particle emission thresholds for tyre wear - a measure Michelin fully supports.

This regulation will assess the global emissions of wear particles from all tyres sold in Europe. Tyres that exceed the established thresholds will no longer be permitted for sale. The aim is clear: to significantly reduce tyre wear emissions to better safeguard the environment and give credit to manufacturers who uphold the highest standards of innovation. 

As a preliminary calculation, to get to 10% tyre and road wear particle emissions, 30% of the existing tyres with the highest level of tyre wear particles should be eliminated from the market. 

How do you balance safety, performance and sustainability?

We invest around 700 million euros every year in R&D. All our tyre designers are trained to the Life Cycle Analysis approach that allows us to evaluate the tyre impact during its entire life, and all our products have to demonstrate a reduction of impact. 

Through careful choice of rubber materials, tyre design and tread design, we are able to provide  the best possible levels of safety, longevity, energy efficiency, comfort and noise while ensuring the lowest level of particle emissions. 

What is the difference between real-world tyre testing and lab-only tests?

A reliable and representative testing method is essential for effective regulation. The success of Euro 7 depends on accurate measurement, with two methods currently under discussion:

Real-world on-road testing
Conducted with four vehicles driving the same route, this method compares three tyre solutions to a reference tyre while accounting for weather conditions. It measures emissions in grams per kilometre per ton of load, providing reliable, reproducible, and representative results.

Developed over six years by the European automotive industry in full transparency with authorities, it has been adopted by ADAC and delivers results consistent with manufacturers’, making it the most robust basis for Euro 7.

Lab-based drum method
Still in development, this test uses a single tyre on a sandpaper-covered drum with added powder to simulate road dust. Its undefined and non-transparent parameters make it open to manipulation and less representative of real emissions.

ADAC’s June 2025 study found it not yet reliable for immediate use.

Results from both methods differ in 28% of cases. For example, a tyre rated 1.42 on-road would be banned, while the same tyre could pass in the lab with 0.83. 

Prematurely adopting the lab method risks encouraging cheap, less innovative imports and weakening Euro 7’s environmental goals. Michelin supports immediate use of the real-world test while refining the lab method as a future complement once mature.

How could these changes impact clean mobility?

We work hard to reduce the impact of our activities, and we analyse every aspect of it through the extensive use of the life cycle analysis.

We are also mindful that our impact isn’t only limited to our products, so we are also engaged to promote more sustainable approaches with our consumers, customers, regulators and competitors. 

Depending on the application, a tyre can represent 10-15% of the global impact of a vehicle, so we know that it is crucial to act to reduce transport impact and help achieve cleaner mobility.