UK’s Tyre Recovery Association (TRA) has written to the British minister responsible for tyre waste policy to call for immediate action to end the T8 exemption and export of end-of-life (ELT) whole tyres.
The DEFRA minister, Mary Creagh MP, is told that the government’s political ambition to reduce waste and create a circular economy will be undermined if the UK’s domestic tyre recovery capabilities have ceased to operate. Responsible operators are being squeezed at both ends. Firstly, by those operating with T8 licences who undercut tyre collection prices while at the same time losing out on the processing of recovered tyres as current regulation incentives T8 operators to bale whole tyres for export markets. The majority find their way to India where many are burnt in illegal pyrolysis plants.
Stark evidence, from Indian tyre trade bodies and anecdotally gathered by British tyre recovery operators, show the very significant contribution to the environmentally illegal pyrolysis plants in India comes from these UK ELT whole tyre exports. India’s leading trade body the ATMA, who represent 95% of the tyre industry in India, evidence this by their call for an end to waste tyre imports.
Mary Creagh MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary at the Department of Environment, Food, Rural Affairs, has said that reducing waste by moving to a circular economy is a top five priority for her department. But Creagh says decisions will not be made until the Taskforce (set up last summer) provides the Secretary of State (Steve Reid MP) advice on how to develop a Circular Economy Strategy and a series of roadmaps suggesting interventions the government might make on waste reduction on a sector-by-sector basis. No timetable on the Taskforce’s report has been made public. The British government committed to scrapping the universally discredited T8 exemption several years ago, but still this undertaking remains unmet.
In the letter the Secretary General of the TRA, Peter Taylor, warns the minster that,
“Without responsible domestic tyre recycling operators there will be an increase in tyre abandonment and fires across the country.”
He goes on to point out that the status quo is undermining the government’s state environmental and economic goals, telling Ms Creagh,
“The UK is therefore exporting an environmental problem that it is capable of processing domestically. As well as creating environmental hazards overseas, this is preventing the development of new industries in the circular economy at home.”
Peter Taylor, Secretary General of the TRA, said: “We have written to the Minister with responsibility to again highlight the environmental damage this government is overseeing and to stress the likely collapse of the UK’s domestic capability when it comes to tyre recovery.”
He added, “Tyres are one of the most prevalent and complex chemical products we use every day. The electric car revolution is making them bigger and heavier. For those of us fighting our industry’s corner it is perverse to await a Taskforce report when the challenges can so immediately be overcome. Tyres burn while the Government fiddles.”