Britain’s Tyre Recovery Association TRA has slammed the waste compliance standards of some signatories to the Basel Convention at this year’s European Tyre Recycling Association Conference (ETRA) that took place in Brussels on May 30 – June 1.

Explaining his association’s criticism, association director, Peter Taylor, complained that signatories to the Convention were simply allowed to “mark their own homework” in some member states. Even when expected norms of ‘equivalence’ were agreed, local compliance and enforcement standards frequently fell well short of what they should be.

“We have a right to expect that when our waste tyres are exported for perfectly legitimate forms of recycling that all receiving countries meet UK standards as the convention assumes equivalency across all nations.”

He continued, “Although end-of-life tyres are a so-called ‘green’ list waste so subject to less rigorous documentation and tracking than ‘amber’ or ‘red’ list flows, this should not simply open a door to unacceptable practices. Sadly, in certain countries it is now clear that internationally agreed norms may be routinely flouted.

As a nation and as an industry, we can and must address such issues. The TRA is moving to further strengthen its member audit and best practice norms but cannot succeed alone. Help from several directions is needed.

We call on the UK government as well as regulators in all exporting and receiving countries to look to their own surveillance and standards, improve them, if necessary, but most important of all, enforce them robustly.”

About the Tyre Recovery Association

A cornerstone of the Tyre Recovery Association is its support for the Responsible Recycler Scheme in the UK. All TRA members are fully accredited by the scheme, which ensures that all end-of-life tyres collected, recycled or reprocessed by them are disposed of or reused in an environmentally friendly or acceptable methods. However, markets for tyre recovery continue to grow and develop and as the EU Landfill Directive is applied right across Europe a new international dimension will evolve. The Tyre Recovery Association has the independent ability to pursue its broader objectives at both industry and government levels, generate performance data specific to its member’s interests as well as develop stronger links across the tyre recycling world. See more at: https://www.tyrerecovery.org.uk

Press release by TRA.