Recycling and Economic Development Initiative of South Africa – Redisa has approached the Pretoria High Court to review and set aside government’s Industry Waste Tyre Management Plan (IWTMP)
Redisa believes that the IWTMP will have detrimental environmental outcomes.
“The plan infringes on the rights of South Africans to a conserved and protected environment, as enshrined in the Constitution. The plan was approved by the previous Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister Barbara Creecy in March, but it is an unlawful, irrational, unreasonable and procedurally unfair administrative action,” the entity says in a statement.
“We have taken this step as last resort. Nobody wants to be part of expensive and protracted legal battles, but a continuation of the course this plan sets for the management of waste tyres would be disastrous,” comments CEO Hermann Erdmann.
“In the highly-unlikely event that it is successfully implemented, it would have destructive socioeconomic consequences,” the organisation posits.
Redisa states that the plan sets unachievable and unrealistic targets, did not use the information and projections that were available, and lacks any budgetary detail, such as failing to usefully incorporate the Waste Tyre Levy.
Redisa points out that using recycling to create new markets to absorb the new products, which is pivotal to a circular economy, does not feature in the IWTMP.
“As a country, we produce at least 170 000 t/y of waste tyres. They end up in landfills, storage facilities, left all over our landscape and are often burned informally to get scrap steel, which is then sold. The toxins and pollutants that waste tyres release when improperly burned poison the air, water and soil,” Erdmann explains.
“If, in this context, a new and dysfunctional waste tyre plan is to be implemented, the consequences will be terrible. Regardless of legal processes, we wish to engage with all stakeholders who are interested in avoiding further ecological damage arising from waste tyres,” Erdmann explains.
From 2013 to 2017, Redisa managed waste tyres in South Africa. During this tenure, it built 22 tyre collection centres, employed over 3 000 people, created 226 small waste enterprises and offset 59 000 t of CO2 emissions, the entity highlights.
