The Leading Journal for the Tyre Recycling Sector

The Leading Journal for the Tyre Recycling Sector

Farmer Takes Revenge on Fly-Tipper

Angered by fly tipping, a UK farmer took matters into his own hands.

UK Farmer Returns Fly Tipped Tyres

The bill for clearing fly tipped waste in the UK almost invariably lies with the landowner, regardless of his innocence in the affair. Anecdotally, many farmers will dig a hole and bury waste rather than face the cost of disposal: Or they face up to the bill and pay to have the waste removed.

However, when farmer Stuart Baldwin found some 400 tyres dumped on his land, he knew exactly who had dumped them there. After giving the culprit the option of removing them. Baldwin collected the tyres and returned then to the owner, leaving the tyres stacked in his front garden.

Whilst not exactly in compliance with the law, it would be a hard case for the authorities to process.

Fly tipping is on the increase in the UK due to restrictions at amenity tips and increased costs to dispose of waste. However, there is no legitimate excuse for a tyre business not to follow proper procedure when disposing of end of life tyres.

There are call for more robust management of waste tyres, but the tyre industry is divided over how this might be achieved.  There is no accurate record of how many tyre retailers there are in the UK – the number may be in excess of 10,000, according to the late Mike Scanlon of Tyre Trade News.

The National Tyre Dealers Association, which operates the Responsible Recycler Scheme represents under 10% of that possible market. Some recyclers have been quietly talking about an Extended Producer Responsibility scheme, but the Tyre Recovery Association’s Peter Taylor says that with recovery rates in the high 90 percentile, there is little more that an EPR scheme could achieve.

Taylor argues that what is needed is proper enforcement of the existing legislation, not the addition of another level of rules.