Introduction and Background
The Ministry for the Environment has commissioned Firecone to assess the nature and size of the problems associated with the current regime for managing end-of-life (EOL) tyres, and the costs and benefits of the range of potential solutions for addressing those problems. Specifically, Firecone has been asked to advise on:
- the nature and size of the weaknesses of the current regime, and overall tyre management situation, including greater clarity about which aspects are working well and which are not (considering the full range of environmental, social and economic costs and benefits)
- the range of potential solutions that could be adopted to address those weaknesses identified - from ensuring improved compliance with existing laws and regulations, through to facilitating or subsidising the re-use of tyres or their constituent parts
- the broad environmental, social and economic costs and benefits of each of those potential solutions identified
- the next steps that should be taken to develop those solutions that look to be preferable.
In the remainder of this introduction and background section we briefly summarise:
- where EOL tyres come from and how they are used or disposed of (the 'supply chain')
- tyre numbers and likely future trends
- the current regulatory requirements relating to EOL tyres
- the health and environmental impacts of the current management approach
Readers who are familiar with the tyre industry should skip to the next section 'Weaknesses of the Current Arrangements'.
The used tyre 'supply chain'
Tyres come from a number of sources, and go to a number of uses and locations. Understanding this 'supply chain' is an important prerequisite for discussing how the management regime for EOL tyres could be improved.
A simplified diagram of the supply chain for EOL tyres in New Zealand is shown in Figure 1 below.
The following points should be noted in relation to the supply chain for EOL tyres:
Tyre sources
- While accurate statistics do not exist, our discussions with council staff and members of the tyre industry suggest that the majority of EOL tyres comes from firms which retail tyres and have removed EOL tyres to fit new ones.
- Not all used tyres enter the system in this way. The other main sources of used
tyres are:
- used car importers (some of the tyres on used imports are thrown away when the vehicle arrives as they are unsuitable for New Zealand roads)
- Tyre manufacturers (scrap tyres)
- Re-treaders (scrap)
- Garages
- Vehicle wreckers
- Large transport companies (some transport operators have their own workshops and replace their tyres themselves, which means that the EOL tyres are not automatically returned to the tyre retailer).
- In addition, EOL tyres can reappear when people who have been using them decide they no longer need them (farmers shifting to bailed silage technologies, for example, no longer need the tyres they had previously used as covers for their silage pits).
Tyre destinations
- Tyres can 'exit' the system in a number
of places. The most significant destinations and uses we are
aware of are:
- farms
- silage cover weights
- culverts and minor structural uses
- official landfill sites
- whole
- quartered or shredded
- private piles
- dumping
- on others' private land
- on public land
- recycling
- chips as replacement for drainage metal
- chips in horse exercise yard
- rubber mats (such as for playgrounds)
- other
- marinas
- racetracks.
- farms
- A number of commercial operators now exist that will collect and transform (quarter or shred) tyres (the degree of transformation can vary significantly from simply quartering of the tyres, to crumbing the product into very fine pieces and removing the non-rubber component).
- Much of the shredded or quartered tyres still go to authorised landfills.
- A small number of commercial operators further recycle crumbed rubber to make products such as rubber matting.
- A significant number of EOL whole tyres are still dumped or put into private piles.
Tyre numbers and growth patterns
It is surprisingly difficult to determine the number of EOL tyres that enter the system each year. Drawing on previous studies, the best estimate appears to be around 3.2 million per annum. However, estimates from previous studies range from 2.5 million (Opus) to 4 million (based on international evidence which suggests a ratio of one tyre per person per year).
On balance, we consider that the number of EOL tyres entering the system is likely to steadily increase over the next 3-5 years:
- Vehicle numbers are increasing rapidly (there has been an increase of 0.5 million in the last five years, [Department of Statistics: 12 month moving average of the total number of licensed vehicles between October 1998 and 2003.] and we have seen no evidence to suggest that this rate of increase is slowing).
- The number of used cars imported is also continuing to grow, reaching a record high in 2003 [Department of Statistics: Hot Off The Press Overseas Merchandise Trade (Imports) June 2003 Commentary.] (which means that a greater number of tyres is likely to be discarded immediately on the cars' arrival).
- The number of tyres re-treaded in New Zealand has been significantly reduced (from around 350,000 in the 1980s to 80,000 in 2003). ['A Long-term Proposal for the Environmentally Responsible Disposal of Scrap Tyres'. Background Section.]
- The number of dairy cows is growing (dairy cattle numbers have increased by 34% between 1994 and 2002). [Department of Statistics: '2002 Agricultural Production Census (Final Results)'.] However, at the same time a shift towards more advanced silage bailing technologies that don't use tyres appears to be occurring [Unfortunately, we have not been able to find reliable statistics on the use of different bailing technologies, and the council officers we discussed the issue with had differing views about the extent to which this shift is occurring.] (bailed silage is drier than pit silage which makes it a better food source). So it is difficult to know whether the use of tyres for silage piles will increase or decrease.
With the exception of the likely number of tyres used for silage pile weights in the coming years, which is uncertain, these indicators all suggest an increase in the number of tyres entering the system over the short to medium term.
Existing legislative and regulatory controls
There are no central or local government regulations that relate specifically to the management of EOL tyres. But a number of broader controls exist that are relevant.
Dumping of tyres
It is illegal to dump tyres on any property, whether publicly or privately owned, without the owner's permission. Under section 15 of the Litter Act every person commits an offence who, without reasonable excuse:
- deposits any litter in or on any public place or, in the case of any private land without the consent of its occupier; or
- having deposited any litter (whether inadvertently or otherwise) leaves the litter there.
In the case of an individual, they are liable to a fine not exceeding $500. In the case of a body corporate, they are liable to a fine not exceeding $2000.
Prohibiting or controlling the management of private tyre piles
Under the Resource Management Act (RMA) (section 9.1) no person may use any land in a manner that contravenes a rule in a district plan or proposed district plan unless the activity is expressly allowed by a resource consent granted by the territorial authority responsible for the plan. There is no doubt that storing tyres is a form of land use. Accordingly, local authorities have the clear ability to control or ban tyre piles through their district plans.
However, at present we are not aware of any local authority having done this.
Similarly, the Local Government Act (Part 8) gives local authorities the right to make bylaws to protect the public from nuisance, and to maintain public health and safety. It explicitly states that this includes the right to pass bylaws on:
- waste management
- trade wastes
- solid wastes
While we have not sought specific legal advice on this issue, we suspect that if they preferred, local authorities could use bylaws also to control or ban private tyre piles.
Finally, the RMA can be used to prohibit or control the establishment of tyre piles where another activity that requires consent - such as moving earth to create space for a pile - needs to be undertaken to create the pile.
Managing the fire risk of private piles
The fire service can require action over inappropriate tyre storage inside or adjacent to buildings, under its general powers. Similarly, any Rural Fire Authority can act to implement any fire control measures thought necessary on rural properties where tyre piles are thought to pose an unacceptable fire risk. And finally, local authorities can use their bylaw making powers to control activities they consider involve fire risks.
The Waipa District Council has a Fire Prevention Bylaw in place, and has used that Bylaw to insist on a tyre pile being removed. However, we are not aware of widespread use of these powers.
Impacts of disposal and storage
The disposal and storage of EOL tyres has a number of potential adverse environmental and health impacts. However, the nature and severity of those impacts depend on how the tyres have been stored or disposed of.
Where it is done properly, placing tyres in landfills has only very limited adverse environmental impacts, and no known adverse health impacts. Some leachate is likely to occur, but evidence suggests that it is relatively innocuous from a health and environmental perspective. [Preliminary Discussion Paper on Scrap Tyre Management in New Zealand, page 9] ['A National Approach to Waste Tyres', Australian Commonwealth Department of Environment, 2001.] Moreover, as landfills in New Zealand have been progressively upgraded, an increasing proportion of them now collect and treat leachate.
However, the impacts can be considerably greater where tyres are not stored adequately. The principal impacts come from tyres being stored without being shredded or crumbed - which has adverse implications for landfill management and the potential to provide a habitat for disease-carrying mosquitoes - and insufficient management of the fire risk.
Storage of whole tyres
Placing whole tyres in landfills (rather than quartering or shredding them) frequently causes practical difficulties. Whole tyres are very bulky for their mass. They also frequently trap gases and can slowly 'float' to the surface.[Tyres in the Environment, Section 4.5.] Together, these factors mean that placing whole tyres in landfills leads to the available space being filled up more quickly, and the landfill potentially becoming unstable. As a result the landfill management is more difficult and costly.
Mosquito related diseases
It is well established that water pooled in tyres provides an ideal breeding ground for some types of mosquito.[See New Zealand Ministry of Health Media Release, 21 March 2003.] In overseas jurisdictions piles of whole tyres stored above ground have therefore proved to be of considerable concern.
New Zealand currently has very few mosquitoes capable of carrying serious diseases, and those that exist do not appear to breed in tyres. However, mosquitoes capable of carrying serious diseases that are known to breed in tyres are discovered by MAF at the border relatively frequently. Accordingly the future establishment of a population of such mosquitoes in New Zealand is possible.
If establishment of a population occurred, above-ground tyre piles near urban centres would be a significant concern, as spraying them against mosquitoes is costly and ineffective.
Management of the fire risk
Tyre fires produce hazardous air emissions and toxic effluent run-off which have adverse health and environmental implications. With regard to the health impacts, tyre fires produce smoke and run-off containing a range of toxic and carcinogenic compounds, including: dioxins; furans; mercury and lead. ['A National Approach to Waste Tyres', Australian Commonwealth Department of Environment, 2001.] Nearby, downwind communities therefore typically need to be evacuated in the event of a tyre fire. By way of example, 10 households were evacuated during a recent tyre fire near Hamilton, and one child was hospitalised.
With regard to the environmental impacts, the air emissions have the potential to contaminate water supplies and crops and the effluent run-off can contaminate nearby water sources and ground water. ['Preliminary Discussion Paper on Scrap Tyre Management in New Zealand', page 8.] The land itself can also be contaminated by the effluent run-off, limiting its further use. Environment Waikato collected 30,000 [Letter from Environment Waikato to MfE, 19 May 2003.] litres of oil from a nearby waterway during the tyre fire mentioned above.
New Zealand has yet to experience a large tyre fire - the Hamilton fire involved around 30,000 tyres. But overseas experience indicates that large tyre fires (involving piles of a million or more tyres) can burn for years.
