AIRTRA has been dissolved and a new body formed and registered under the name ‘Tyre & Rubber Recyclers Association of India’ (TRRAI).
It has been advised that sizeable members from the AIRTRA joined the newly formed TRRAI. People started exiting from AIRTRA in early 2023.
“AIRTRA was an association registered under Section 8, of Registrar of Companies (ROC) which is completely driven by its shareholders in a non-democratic way. Neither was this share diluted democratically or revised as per member’s demand. Somewhere it was found that AIRTRA shareholders performing some activities which become a threat to all members and that activities are done for self-benefits, monopolised, and dictated and not in favour of all members,” informed Satish Goyal, President of TRRAI.
Goyal served as VP (Pyrolysis) of AIRTRA and Member of Sub Committee – Circular Economy in Tyre & Rubber Recycling Industry in India, under the Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (MOEF&CC)
The Tyre & Rubber Recyclers Association of India (TRRAI) is an association which is registered under Indian Trust Act 1882, and already has more than 250 members. TRRAI is structured in a democratic manner to educate and safeguard the rights of the members and the recycling industry. TRRAI is representing the majority of Scrap tyre/rubber, ELT’s recycling companies in India including Pyrolysis, Reclaim Rubber, CRMB, RCB, Crumb Rubber, etc.
The Introduction of EPR has brought in a recognition to Indian rubber & tyre recyclers and has been instrumental in building a relationship between producers and recyclers. According to the TRRAI president, “As per the Regulations of EPR Policy, if the producers encourage and support recyclers by a proper monetary support, it would help recyclers to invest in research and upgrade recycling infrastructure in a more environment-friendly way. EPR Policy regulations, now help in streamlining and continues the upgradation of the available recycling resources in India.”
With the import norms becoming more stringent, procuring discarded tyres is now a challenge for the recycling industry as the requirements of recyclers is more than the actual ELT’s produced every day. In FY 2022-23, India has imported close to about 7,500,000 Metric Tons of ELT’s for various recycling industries.
“It is already a great challenge to procure ELT for the recycling industry. The import of ELT helps crumb rubber manufacturers to produce a quality product, which is again encouraging reuse and recycle in various industries. If the import criteria become more stringent, it would affect the existing recyclers in terms of availability of raw material.”
The TRRAI advocates the closure of illegal recycling units. There is an urgent need to stop recyclers who are unregistered with governing bodies and running their units in an illegal manner and posing a threat to the environment. The unregistered units are creating a threat to legal recycling units in terms of availability of raw material.
