The origins of GENAN date back to the 1970s. At that time, the automotive industry was booming and for the first time people became aware of the problem that the growing mountains of used tyres in landfill sites were rotting very slowly. This was the starting signal for the construction of a plant for recycling used tyres. The idea was further developed and pursued in the 1980s, and the first plant for recycling used tyres was opened in Denmark in 1990.

The capacity of this first plant was 35,000 tonnes of mixed used tyres.
The plant still exists today and its capacity was doubled in 2011. The experience GENAN gained with this plant formed the basis for the opening of a recycling plant in Oranienburg in 2003, followed some time later by two further plants in Germany, one in Dorsten and one in Kammlach. In 2014, GENAN finally opened its first plant outside Europe - the world's largest used tyre recycling plant in Houston has a capacity of 100,000 tyres per year. GENAN has been operating another plant in Portugal since 2019.

The company's development is focussed on sustainability and further developing the possibilities of ELT materials. This idea was crowned in 2017 with GENAN's product innovation: GENAN SAFE rubber pellets are uniform in shape and size and are ideal for shock-absorbing playground surfaces.

GENAN strives for a sustainable future: