Environmental crime seminar told that tyres are the biggest threat

The warning came from David O&#39C;onnor, group environmental and technical director at Onyx Environmental, who said that with 26 million tyres a year scrapped the Landfill restrictions would have a major impact. From 2003 whole tyres will be banned from landfill sites and from 2006 shredded tyres will be banned.

Mr O&#39C;onnor's warning came after several delegates had raised concerns over the increasing numbers of abandoned cars and the level of flytipping of domestic and commercial waste.

The seminar, run by the Associate Parliamentary Sustainable Waste Group, was also addressed by Ian Bryan, chief executive of Nottingham based Waste Per Se who said that “the essential nature of a tyre is that it is indestructible. That is why it is such a problematic waste”. And, he warned that for some tyre dealers and collectors there is a strong economic incentive to break the law. “Generally the police aren't too interested in flytipping.”

Mr Bryan said that talks are currently taking place between the tyre industry and the department of Trade and Industry about agreeing codes of practice for tyre disposal. “This could unlock the purse strings through tighter self regulation.”

And, he called for WRAP – the Waste and Resources Action Programme – to be given 3 million to carry out research into tyres because of the looming ban on whole tyres to landfill. This figure would represent one tenth of the money that WRAP spending on packaging materials.

Baroness Young, chief executive of the Environment Agency, said that the Agency would be launching a campaign at the end of February to promote the proper disposal of tyres as well as giving advice on recycling and other uses.

Fines and local authorities
The seminar also heard of concerns from local authorities at the costs of dealing with environmental crime, from litter to flytipping.

Russell Makin from the London Borough of Merton raised the question of local authorities receiving the fines levied on people who abandon cars “If we take people to court for abandoned vehicles we see that the fines get paid to the government. We get costs awarded to us but these are often not enough to cover all our costs.”

Environment Minister Michael Meacher said as environment minister he had a lot of sympathy for this view, but pointed out that “the Treasury regard finance and funding as their's which they allocate and draw income in from wherever.” He said that this view had changed slightly with trials over parking tickets but offered no immediate indication of any review of fines being paid back to councils.

Other speakers, including Michael Wheeler of Swale Borough Council, voiced concerns that local authorities had no powers to check businesses were disposing properly of their trade waste. This is because the duty was passed to the Environment Agency under Section 34 of the Environment Protection Act.