Tyre recycling funding to clean up Ireland’s agri-sector

Tyre recycling in Ireland will be boosted by funding worth EUR 700 000, which was granted by the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Denis Naughten.

A new take-back scheme is being set up in Ireland to advance the proper handling of end-of-life tyres generated at farms across the country. In fact, four recycling centres will be set up to support the collection of agricultural waste tyres; to be located in Cavan, Limerick, Wexford, and Galway.

Naughten has announced that the first three tonnes of tyres handed in by each farmer will be subsidised – this equates the some 360 tyres. Each farmer will reportedly be charged EUR 15 per tonne to participate the new recycling service.

This development follows years of lobbying by recycling and agricultural stakeholders, according to Thomas Cooney, the chairman of the Irish Farmers’ Association’s (IFA’s) Environment and Rural Affairs Committee.

‘This funding ensures the sustainable management of old and worn tyres which are no longer in use for anchoring plastic covers on silage pits,’ he remarks. Cooney stresses that he applauds the government’s decision to finally finance a dedicated farm tyres recycling initiative.

Meanwhile, an estimated 750 000 tyres are said to have been dumped in the Irish countryside to date. Since last year, tyre manufacturers are required to pay a fee of EUR 2.80 to cover the costs of recycling at end-of-life stage.