TRA slams UK government over scrap tire exports to India

London – The Tyre Recovery Association (TRA) has called for urgent action over the  export of scrap tires to India, which it believes is undermining the UK’s tire recycling industry.

In a 14 March letter to Mary Creagh, minister for waste and recycling, the TRA called for immediate action to end a ‘T8 exemption’ and export of end-of-life (ELT) whole tires.

Warning that time is running out, the association said “the threat to UK’s domestic tire recovery capability increases as exports of British tire waste to India continues unabated.”

Government ambitions “to reduce waste and create a circular economy will be undermined if the UK’s domestic tire recovery capabilities have ceased to operate,” it added.

According to the TRA, responsible operators are being “squeezed” by those operating with T8 licences who undercut tire collection prices.

They are also, it said, losing out on the processing of recovered tires as current regulation incentivises T8 operators to bale whole tires for export markets.

Most of these ELT exports “find their way to India where many are burnt in illegal pyrolysis plants,” the UK industry body stated.

The situation, it said, is linked to the failure of the UK government to deliver on a long-standing commitment to scrap the T8 exemption.

“The UK is, therefore, exporting an environmental problem that it is capable of processing domestically,” TRA secretary general Peter Taylor said in the letter to minster Creagh.

As well as creating environmental hazards overseas, Taylor warned that “this is preventing the development of new industries in the circular economy at home.”

“I restress that we need to see an end to the T8 exemption and we need to see an end to whole-tire exports of end-of-life car tires.”