A crackdown on NSW tyre retailers found half of those inspected were unaware of their responsibility to ensure used tyres were handled by legal operators.
The Environment Protection Authority inspected 258 tyre retailers in the Sydney, Illawarra, Hunter and Coffs Harbour areas last month as part of a campaign to curb illegal stockpiling and dumping of tyres, and to reduce the risk of toxic fires.
Only about two-thirds sent tyres to a “reputable facility”, despite fines and other penalties for offences, the EPA said.
“Anyone involved in handling waste tyres can be found guilty of an offence when waste tyres are transported to a place that cannot lawfully be used as a waste facility,” Environment Minister Robyn Parker said.
Retailers had to keep documents on the transporter used to dispose of used tyres, where the tyres were processed or disposed, and to ensure the waste facility held appropriate licences.
During the inspections, the EPA issued 11 notices to retailers asking them to provide more information on how they handled discarded tyres. One tyre transporter was telling retailers waste tyres were being taken to sites no longer in operation, the EPA said. Seven sites faced further investigation.
The EPA had still to inspect 20 per cent of retailers in the four areas. It also planned to focus on waste tyre transporters as the campaign progressed.
The equivalent of about 48 million tonnes of tyres are discarded in Australia annually, and many end up in landfills, are dumped or exported.
This week the federal government launched a voluntary tyre stewardship to raise the level of recycling.
Most of the companies signed up to the scheme so far, however, were identified by environmental group the Boomerang Alliance as being relatively lax in their oversight of how used tyres were handled.
Victoria’s EPA, meanwhile, will issue a number of notices after a joint operation with the Country Fire Authority and the Metropolitan Fire Brigade found sites where stored or dumped tyres posed severe fire risk and environmental harm.
“The site’s operators are required under EPA [pollution abatement notices] to put controls in place to mitigate risks and keep EPA advised of these required works,” a spokeswoman for Victoria’s EPA said.
Victoria did not have limits on tyre storage, but might follow NSW’s approach. The O’Farrell government required licences for companies holding the equivalent of 5000 passenger car tyres, or about 50 tonnes, and hoped to cut that to 500 tyres.
Victoria’s EPA was ”formulating its regulatory response for inappropriate stockpiling of end-of-life tyres,” the spokeswoman said.
A big tyre dump, which might hold the equivalent of nine million tyres, near Stawell in western Victoria, was a focus of clean-up efforts.
The urgency to reduce the stockpile was underscored this week when bushfires from the nearby Black Range came within a couple of kilometres of the dump, according to the Northern Grampians Shire.
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald