THE TYRE DUMPING ECONOMY
The Tyre Dumping Economy
Broadly, these tyres would come from a number of sources within these 3 categories:
- Consumer Use
- Commercial Use
- Industrial Use
The reality for most consumers is that it would be very rare for them to have to dispose of tyres. In the majority of instances, tyre changes are carried out by a mechanic or specialist tyre shop, so used tyres are retained by the business. It is then the business’ responsibility to dispose of the tyres they have accumulated. This is generally true of commercial and industrial vehicles.
There is a requirement for these businesses to take appropriate action and dispose of the tyres in an appropriate way. The most common form of this is landfill by disposal of tyres at a waste transfer station. However, the process is not so simple.
Waste transfer station charge a fee for landfill of between $3 & $20 per tyre depending on its size. This cost is normally passed onto the consumer. However, these charges have inadvertently created a tyre dumping economy where fees are retained by the tyre dumpers. This practice is common as the scope of the industry is vast the Environmental Protection Agencies (EPA) resources per state are small.
Tyre Dumping and Waste Is Not Improving
To measure the size of the problem and to demonstrate that not only does it persist but it has worsened over time, we have taken snapshots of the end-of-life tyre economy in 2001 and 2006.
What is clear is this is an Australia-wide problem
The number of tyres committed to landfill is increasing
(12,800,000 tyres per year in Australia alone)
The number of tyres being illegally dumped is increasing,
(2,800,000 tyres per year in Australia alone)
The amount of tyre recycling, reuse is decreasing
(down approximately 22% from 2001 to 2006)
Current Methods of Tyre Disposal