Hugo Richardson: Industrial Design Studentship 2019
Case Studies
Posted: 12/01/2021
The Tyre Collective
Industrial Design Student 2019
Hugo Richardson Royal College of Art / Imperial College London Innovation Design Engineering
Today, half a million tons of tyre particles are produced annually in
Europe, from vehicles accelerating, braking and cornering. The
particles become airborne affecting our lungs. More are swept into the
waterways and eventually enters our food chain. In fact, tyre wear is
the second-largest microplastic pollutant after single-use plastics. As
we move towards heavier electric vehicles, tyre emissions are projected
to increase. Future vehicle pollution will not come from the tailpipe,
but from tyres, and we must act now!
The Tyre Collective aims to mitigate emissions by collecting tyre
wear at the source, preventing it from entering our environment. We
discovered tyre wear particles are charged from friction with the road.
Our patent-pending technology uses electrostatics to capture tyre wear
right at the wheel. The particulates are gathered in a removable storage
unit. Once collected, these fragments are processed and can be reused
in a variety of applications, creating a closed-loop system. In our
fight against air pollution, tyres have largely been ignored. Now, we
can save our air from tyre wear!
The Tyre Collective is co-founded by Siobhan Anderson, Hanson Cheng, Deepak Mallya and Hugo Richardson.
