Scrap tyres to escape waste ‘straight-jacket’?

Europe – ‘Up to Euro 75 000 million can be saved through better implementation of EU legislation for recycling,’ according to Jorge Diaz Del Castillo from the European Commission’s DG Environment. Speaking at this week’s Tire Recycling Forum in Brussels, he noted that scrap tyres have a big role to play – not least through ‘releasing tyres from the straight-jacket of waste’.

There are roughly 240 million cars on EU roads right now, resulting in 3.3 million tonnes of end-of-life tyres (ELTs) per year. While material recycling rates have climbed all the way from 5% in 1992 to 38% last year, Del Castillo warned that this figure was ‘deceptive’. He explained: ‘It might not sound so bad, but remember that we work with averages. Statistics can tell you what you want.

For example, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden might be doing well, but the truth is that countries like Turkey are still landfilling more than 50% of their municipal waste.’ It would be helpful if ELTs followed in the footsteps of plastic waste and biodegradables, for which end-of-waste (EOW) criteria were being prepared, noted Del Castillo. ‘EOW criteria are very beneficial as they would harmonise rules across the EU, provide legal certainty as well as a level playing field and further promote separate collection,’ he said.

Another issue is that the existing method of calculating recycling rates was ‘flawed’, he claimed. With four different methods in use, Del Castillo pointed out: ‘This means that a member state can take any of these off the shelf and say ”Look, I’ve managed the 40% recycling target”, but another one might indicate only 30%.’

Meanwhile, reduced car sales and notable exports of ELTs have brought about a 20% drop in tyre availability over 2012 in most member states, according to Dr Valerie L. Shulman, secretary general of the European Tyre Recycling Association. ‘Sourcing remains one of the biggest problems,’ she argued.

A full report on the Tire Recycling Forum will be published in the December issue of Recycling International.

For more information, visit: www.ec.europa.eu/dgs/environment