Ever wonder how Merityre disposes of your old tyre?

As the Merityre fitter rolls away your old tyre and replaces it with a gleaming new one, do you ever wonder how Merityre disposes of your old tyre? Landfill? No that would be illegal! The European 2006 Landfill Directive prohibits the disposal of whole and shredded tyres in landfill sites. Tyre retailers, garages and vehicle dismantlers amass an estimated waste of 40 million tyres year. An impressive number! You will be intrigued to know the where they all go!

Re-use, the most straightforward option, is the retread market that accounts for about 12% or 5 million tyres a year. There are limitations however, as a tyre can only have a retread once in its life. With cheap tyre imports, this sector is in a declining market. Tyres are also re-cycled in a variety of other ways from stationery to flood defences. How many ‘I used to be a Car Tyre’ notebooks did Santa deliver last Christmas? One of the most innovative uses of car tyres is the flood defence embankment on the river Witham in Lincolnshire. If this project proves to be successful we could see similar flood defences throughout the country to help alleviate our rising flood problems.

After re-use, the reprocessing of tyres accounts for about 40 million tyre units a year. This sector can be broadly split into materials recovery, (such as crumb tyres in carpet underlay or road surfaces), energy recovery and landfill engineering. The technology behind energy recovery is an emerging market, as tyres could replace up to 25% of coal in the cement kiln industry.

With so many options why are tyres subject to fly-tipping? Fly-tipping is not a new phenomenon and can take a number of forms from the single tyre found on the roadside to the large scale trailer load dumping, either way a huge cost to local authorities. Did you know that tyre retailers have to pay over £1 for each and every used tyre that is removed – last year alone Merityre ensured the safe environmental disposal of over 200,000 tyres.

Responsibility for tackling this problem rests not only on the tyre industry but also on the individual.

The next time you need a tyre be sure to visit Merityre, an environmentally responsible company proud to support the 'Responsible Recycler' logo.