Disposal of whole or chipped tyres in landfill is illegal, meaing other disposal routes or uses for end-of-lfe tyres must be found.
Tyres can be used as material for surfaces such as children’s playgrounds and sports surfaces, or in decorative applications.
However, none of these methods provide an ultimate solution because the products are still subject to wear and tear and will require eventual disposal in the future.Other challenges to tyre recycling include;
Used tyres arise at over 20,000 collection points all over the UK.
Storage of used tyres requires space and can present potential environmental hazards – thus collection must be made daily.
Due to their shape and size tyres are difficult to handle - tailored collection services are required.
Large investments and high volumes are needed to make processing of tyres economic. The level of investment required by Sapphire Energy Recovery and the cement industry to establish the infrastructure for processing services has been well in excess of £15 million.
