New tyre recycling scheme could be high cost

FARMERS could be facing charges of up to €30 per tyre in recycling costs when they go to ‘re-fit’ their tractors, under the terms of a new recycling scheme proposed by the Dept. of the Environment.

Faced with illegal tyre mountains, the Dept. have moved to ‘beef up’ a voluntary scheme that had been first introduced in 2007 based on ‘voluntary compliance’.

Galway IFA Environment Chairman, Bertie Roche, said that the IFA along with the commercial sector were trying to ensure that any recycling charge would be reasonable – a maximum of €10 for commercial and tractor tyres.

He said that as things stood, consumers were paying a recycling charge when they bought tyres but from now on the new charges would be itemised on each bill.

“Like everyone else we don’t want any illegal disposal of tyres but in any scheme we want the recycling charge to be modest and reasonable,” said Bertie Roche.

He said that under the new proposals, ordinary motorists would be facing a recycling charge of €3 to €3.50 per tyre while farmers could be facing into a cost of about €100 if they changed the four tyres on their tractor.

A new entity called Repak ELT have been charged by the Dept. of the Environment with administering the new scheme – Repak estimate that there are 100 illegal tyre dumps across the Republic of Ireland.

According to Repak, the old scheme failed because even though tyre retailers paid collection agents to take the tyres away at a cost of around 80c per tyre, they still ended up in illegal dumps.

The new Producer Responsibility Initiative is due to start before the end of the year with Repak ELT having additional powers to search and prosecute while the penalties for illegal tyre dumps will be massively increased.

However, according to Bertie Roche, the onus needs to be on the new scheme to be fair and reasonably priced. “Farmers, like everyone else, want a scheme that’s environmentally friendly – we believe that the charge per agricultural tyre should not be any more than €10,” he said.