Working with local authorities, the Agency said it is looking to tackle the “cowboy element who make a profit from dumping tyres illegally in country lanes”.
Officers will be inspecting companies' records to ensure they have sent waste tyres for disposal legally. Failure to keep proper records on waste produced and transferred to other companies is an offence under the Environmental Protection Act.
Since July last year whole tyres cannot be sent to landfill in the UK under the terms of the Landfill Directive, leading to increased disposal costs for tyres. From July 2006, shredded tyres will also be subject to a landfill ban. Instead, tyres will have to be recycled or recovered to generate energy.
Agency pollution team leader Martin Everitt said illegal dumping is a national problem and while individuals avoid legal disposal costs of tyres, these costs are picked up by local councils, “so it is the public who are actually being ripped off”.
Mr Everitt said: “We will be checking the records of tyre companies to check for proper disposal. Any companies handling used tyres should check their own records and make sure they know where the tyres end up, not just pass them on to someone else and hope for the best.”
The Agency is warning that piles of tyres are a fire hazard and “attract arsonists as well as being unsightly and expensive to remove”.
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