Tyres and Automotive Rubber
New EU legislation, in particular the Landfill Directive 1999, will have a significant effect on waste tyre disposal across Europe. There are over 2.5 million tonnes of waste tyres arising in Europe each year, of which over 1.3 million tonnes are disposed of to landfill. In July 2003 the Landfill Directive bans the landfilling of whole tyres, and in July 2006, waste tyres will be totally banned from landfill.
The lack of good statistical information on the generation and movement of waste tyres in Wales mirrors the situation across the UK. Efforts have been made over the past three years following the publication by the Environment Agency in 1998 of their technical report Tyres in the Environment 1998, to improve the collection of data on a UK national scale.
The Tyre Industry Council, in a joint initiative with the UK Government, established the Used Tyre Working Group (UTWG) to collect and collate meaningful data on a consistent basis. One of the key goals was to provide evidence to support and assist the development of policy guidelines for dealing with what was believed to be a growing problem.
In 1998, there were an estimated 22,300 tonnes of waste tyre arisings in Wales, 11,500 tonnes of which were disposed to landfill. The remaining 10,800 were disposed of for value, though only 3,000 tonnes of this was dealt with in Wales.
There is currently no waste tyre reprocessing capacity of any significance in Wales.
There are a number of commercial tyre retread manufacturing plants in Wales producing approximately 1,400 tonnes of retread commercial tyres per annum. (Equivalent to approximately 35,000 tyres) With little exception, they are all in decline and running under capacity due to prevailing market conditions.
Assuming an 18% growth in arisings in the period 1998-2006 it is estimated that the total arisings in 2006 will be 26,300 tonnes. Current reprocessing capacity of tyres in Wales is 3,000. Currently 9,000 tonnes of waste tyre arisings are used for energy recovery in cement kilns outside Wales. Assuming a 2% per annum growth in this activity, this disposal route will rise to 10,500 tonnes per annum by 2006.
It is estimated that by 2006 there will be a net shortfall in waste tyre disposal capacity in Wales of approximately 12,800 tonnes per annum. If incineration ceases to be an option, for whatever reason, then the shortfall in capacity will exceed 23,000 tonnes in 2006.
It is clear therefore that remedial action must be taken.
