As reported by Michael Moroney, farmers are now facing a mandatory tyre recycling fee of up to €20 per tractor tyre.

Repak, a not-for-profit packaging recycling scheme, established Repak End of Life Tyres (ELT) to operate the new waste tyre compliance scheme.

ELT scheme facts:

  • Repak ELT will operate new ELT Producer Responsibility Initiative (PRI).
  • Repak ELT is the only compliance scheme now in operation for ELT.
  • Repak ELT will manage the new scheme based on best practice and modelled on established, successful schemes already operating across Europe.
  • Enforcement is a key pillar of the scheme.
  • An estimated 10 to 15 million tyres are now in illegal dumps around Ireland.
  • “Repak ELT is working with the tyre industry and welcomes the fact that members of the tyre industry have already registered for the scheme,” said Repak CEO Seamus Clancy. “Enforcement is a key pillar of this ELT scheme and, without it, the scheme simply won’t work. We intend to work closely therefore with the Department of Environment, as well as Revenue, the Environmental Protection Agency and the new three regional lead enforcement authorities.”

    In order to give the tyre industry an essential transition period to prepare for a full PRI scheme, Repak ELT will roll out the new waste compliance scheme in two phases.

  • Phase one: beginning this week, members of the tyre industry registering for the scheme and registration is free for 2015.
  • Phase two: rollout of a full PRI scheme in the second half of 2016. The Minister for the Environment has outlined many times that this PRI scheme will formalise the fee already in existence for the industry.
  • Serious problem

    A spokesperson from the Department of the Environment has said that there is a serious problem with waste tyres in Ireland and that elements within the tyre industry will not face up to that problem.

    “They don’t accept producer responsibility and they don’t accept the ‘polluter pays’ principle,” said the spokesperson. “Instead, they want the taxpayer and the Exchequer to continue to foot the bill.”

    In a statement to the Irish Farmers Journal, the Department of the Environment has dispelled the suggestion that the new gap in levy between north and south will result in a significant black market economy.

    “Operators based in other jurisdictions, but bringing tyres on to the Irish market or distance sellers, will have exactly the same obligations as any operator based in Ireland, so the suggestion that operators based outside the jurisdiction will have a competitive advantage over their Irish counterparts is unfounded,” reads the statement.

    The Department of the Environment has also claimed that this will not increase the cost of tyres.

    “The claimed increase in the cost of a tyre is a myth,” reads the statement. “The proposed model will formalise a charge that tyre retailers already apply but which appears not be going towards the cost of managing the waste as it is supposed to. It seems fair then to ask where that money is going now and to provide a system that ensures it is properly directed in the future.”