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Under the European Landfill Directive,
both whole tyres and shredded tyres are banned
from landfill disposal.
Since July 2006, the ban applied to all car,
commercial, motorcycle, aircraft, and industrial
tyres, including solid tyres.
However, around 100,000 tonnes a year of used tyres is now used in landfill
engineering applications.
The UK generated 475,232 tonnes of waste tyres
during 2004. Of this, 34% was recycled, 26%
re-used, 15% was burned as a fuel, 7% exported
and 6% used in landfill engineering
applications.
The government has decided a system of voluntary
producer responsibility will be enough to meet
the terms of the Landfill Directive on used
tyres.
Its recycling development organisation WRAP - the Waste and Resources Action
Programme - has developed two publicly available standards for tyre recycling it
hopes will improve confidence in using tyre-derived materials.
PAS 107
relates to different grades of rubber particles from used tyres and
PAS 108
relates to tyre bales used in construction.
Click on the dates below to follow the progress
of tyre recovery in the UK, as reported
by letsrecycle.com:
February 2008: Tyre retailers have said
they are forking out £2 million every year to recycle and dispose of waste tyres
which are dumped illegally on their sites.
January 2008: Questions have been raised over whether a proposed tyre
recycling protocol would encourage less monitoring of the illegal tyre recycling
sector.
January 2008: The Environment Agency have proposed developing a Quality
Protocol for tyre recycling, which they believe will improve the market for
tyre-derived rubber.
January 2008: A new tyre recycling
business has taken off in North London, thanks to a £133,000 grant from the
London Development Agency.
December 2007: Retreads could
provide a much larger market for recycled tyre crumb than previously believed,
new research has suggested.
November 2007: Cement manufacturer
Cemex has been granted permission to double the volume of waste tyres it uses as
a fuel at its cement kiln in Rugby.
November 2007: The first companies
to be recycling tyres in line with two new British quality standards PAS 107 and
PAS 100 have been named by WRAP.
August 2007: The largest tyre recycler
in the UK - Credential Environmental - has agreed its first contract to send
tyres to a cement kiln.
July 2007: Water jet firm Aquablast is
to construct a plant which uses high
pressure water jets to remove tyre rubber from reinforcing steel in "earthmover" tyres.
May 2007: Credential Environmental has begun a £400,000 revamp of a
shredding facility to make sure it is up-to-speed when its new £4.1m plant opens
this summer.
May 2007: WRAP has launched the first nationwide standards governing the
recycling of used tyres, including the production of tyre bales, shred and
crumb.
April 2007: Projects where tyres are recycled by pyrolysis face a set
back caused by a lack of direct markets for the output char, according to a new
report.
March
2007: The Republic of Ireland is bringing in a producer responsibility
system to crack down on the uncontrolled burning and dumping of waste tyres.
February 2007: Credential Environmental's new £2 million tyre
"pre-processing" site in the Midlands, and its new cryogenic reprocessing plant
in South Wales look set to be up and running by this summer.
February 2007: By 2009 higher value markets could be available for the
tyre reuse sector according to the commercial arm of Imperial College, London.
November 2006: A recycling company in
Hartlepool has been prosecuted for storing and
shredding over 120,000 tyres at an unlicensed
recycling depot.
November 2006: A manufacturer of rubber
sports surfaces has claimed that virgin polymers
are better than similar products made from
recycled material.
November 2006: The Environment Agency is
warning warehouse owners to be on their guard
after finding 30,000 waste tyres dumped in
Colchester.
October 2006: Plans have been announced for a new £4.1m tyre recycling
plant in Wales, which would use a new technology claimed to be an "emission
free" process.
September 2006: A new tyre recycling technology has been successfully
tested in North Wales, fuelling hopes that a commercial-scale plant will open
next year.
August 2006: The Wales Environment Trust is urging businesses in Wales
to use refurbished tyres, after criticising the "slow uptake" compared with the
rest of the UK.
August
2006: Growth in the demand for waste tyres could lead to a shortage of
tyres from next year, researchers have forecast.
July
2006: The tyre industry has said it will cope with the full ban on
landfilling used tyres, which began on July 16.
July
2006: Ban on landfilling shredded tyres
Businesses are being reminded that they can no
longer send any
used tyres to landfill sites because
of a ban on landfilling shredded tyres.. |
June
2006: All 16 shredder operating companies in the UK are to ban tyres
from their feedstock, the British Metals Recycling Association has announced.
June 2006: Cement producer Lafarge has satisfied the Agency with its
plans for tackling a breach of its emissions limits in the use of waste tyres as
a fuel.
May 2006:
The Waste and Resources Action Programme is looking to fund trials that will see
proven tyre recycling techniques commercialised.
April 2006: Cambridgeshire tyre recycling firm Murfitts Industries is
installing new machinery to expand its capacity, but has also suffered a fire.
April 2006: Credential Environmental Group rebrands automotive and
hazardous waste management subsidiaries after acquiring Tyre Collection
Services.
February 2006: Although the cement
industry claims it is in full compliance with
new European controls on emissions from the
burning of tyres, Lafarge Cement is warned for
not complying.
February 2006: Industry has been warned
of increased costs for the disposal of waste
tyres after this summer's landfill ban comes
into full force.
February 2006: Defra has said shredded
tyres can be used for certain landfill
engineering purposes after this summer's ban on
sending all tyres to landfill.
January 2006 :
A company in Barnsley is to begin trialling the use of recycled
tyre crumb in the retreading of truck tyres.
December 2005 :
Up to 250 tonnes of shredded tyres are on fire at a recycling
plant in the Attercliffe area of Sheffield, according to the South
Yorkshire Fire and Civil Defence Authority.
October 2005 :
Around 70 firefighters were called to handle a "serious"
blaze at a tyre recycling plant in Newark this weekend.
August 2005 :
Cemex UK Cement Ltd is set to restart trials using waste tyres
as a substitute fuel at its Rugby cement plant after the Environment
Agency issued them a new permit.
June 2005
:
Date for ban on landfilling shredded tyres
The government has scrapped plans to put back the
deadline for sending shredded tyres to landfill, confirming
a July 16, 2006 date for the Landfill Directive ban. |
June 2005 :
WRAP has launched a tender process for research projects into new
markets for waste rubber, as part of its new tyre programme.
April 2005 :
WRAP is to hold its first formal stakeholder meeting to consider
work on the recycling of waste tyres next month.
March 2005 :
The Tyre Recovery Association has expressed disappointment at possible delays
to the July 2006 deadline for taking shredded tyres to landfill.
March 2005 :
The Environment Agency has advised Rugby Cement that it needs to fully understand environmental
regulations before it will be allowed to use waste tyres as a fuel.
December 2004 :
North Wales company Used Tyre Distillation Research is aiming to construct a £3.5 million tyre recycling plant.
September 2004 :
The Environment Agency has mounted a campaign against "cowboy" tyre disposal operations.
September 2004 :
The UK cement industry has said using waste tyres as an alternative fuel is key to the sector's sustainability goals.
August 2004 :
Truck tyre recycler Charles Lawrence International has increased
the tonnage of rubber it recycles following end market expansions.
August 2004 :
The Environment Agency is considering Rugby Cement's request to re-start a
trial using waste tyres as a fuel.
July 2004 :
Four thousand tonnes of tyres have been recycled as the UK's
seventh worst tyre dump was cleared this month.
July 2004 :
The trial to burn chipped tyres at Rugby Cement has been halted by the Environment Agency.
June 2004 :
The UK tyre recovery industry is to launch a new trade association
this July to represent its interests.
June 2004 :
Sapphire Energy Recovery is increasing the amount of waste tyres it
processes by 36% this year to 100,000 tonnes.
May 2004 :
New research boosted the image of retreaded tyres for use in passenger vehicles.
March 2004 :
A new £5 million tyre granulating plant was commissioned in
Manchester to process about 35,000 tonnes of tyres a year.
March 2004 :
Moncktons Coke and Chemical Company has applied to the Environment Agency to use
tyres in its coke fuel manufacturing process.
February 2004:
After a year in operation, Cornwall-based Re-Tyre's latest
figures showed it was processing around 3,000 tyres a week.
November
2003:
Consultation responses
The government has published a summary of
responses to its tyre producer responsibility
consultation paper. |
September
2003:
Shredded tyres are to be trialled as a feedstock by Rugby Cement – RMC – as a partial
replacement for coal at its Lawford Road plant in Rugby.
July
2003:
The Retread Manufacturers' Association has welcomed the decision to make European
standards for retreaded tyres compulsory in the UK.
June
2003:
The Environment Agency has issued briefing notes to clarify the position of the
waste sector with regard to next month's ban on the landfilling of whole tyres.
June
2003: The tyre industry has proposed a form
of compliance scheme to handle tyre recovery obligations of manufacturers and importers
in forthcoming regulations.
March
2003: As the government continues its
second consultation on tyre disposal regulations,
the National Tyre Distributors Association has
said tyre retailers have "borne the full burden
of responsible tyre disposal for far too long".
March
2003: Revealing their thoughts in a second
consulation paper on used tyres, the government
has said it would like to avoid a statutory charge
placed equally on all tyre producers, as it fears
the charge would be passed on to consumers.
January 2003:
As restrictions on the landfilling of whole tyres
come into force this year, the government is expected
to reveal its views on the future of tyre recycling
soon.
October 2002:
The Department of Trade and Industry is now assembling
a report containing the responses to their consultation
paper on the possibility of a producer responsibility
model for tyres.
October 2002:
An East Anglian man who handled an estimated one million waste tyres a year through three
unlicensed companies has been jailed after failing to dispose of a Suffolk tyre mountain.
July 2002:
the deadline for responding to the consultation
on a producer responsibility model for tyres passed,
with compliance schemes from the packaging industry
advising against a complicated system of charging.
April 2002:
Producer responsibility consultation
The Department of Trade and Industry proposed
a producer responsibility model for tyre recycling
and issued a consultation paper on
possible systems. |
February 2002:
Fears were expressed that the Landfill Directive
would lead to a huge rise in the illegal dumping
of tyres.
November 2001:
The Environment Agency released the Tyres Protocol,
guidance to reduce the environmental impact of
using tyres as a fuel source in cement kilns.
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