Irish tyre management scheme shows success, but an independent audit makes recommendations for improvement.
Ireland Recycles 97% of Car and Motorcycle Tyres
The Irish Minister for Communications, Climate Action and the Environment, Mr. Richard Bruton T.D. recently published a review into the first year of a scheme set up to ensure waste tyres are disposed of correctly.
Minister Bruton said, “As set out in the Climate Action Plan, efficiently managing our resources is crucial as we move towards a more sustainable, resilient society. We are taking actions across the board to ensure we manage our waste better.”
The RepakELT Scheme was established in 2017, to tackle illegal dumping of tyres, to gather accurate data on waste tyres and to promote good practice for managing tyres which have reached their end-of-life.
The focus of the first year of the Scheme was on passenger car and motorcycle tyres. The report being published now shows that the Scheme has been very successful, of the approximately 3.8 million tyres placed on the market last year, 97% were recycled.
The Scheme is operated by Repak ELT, with a registration and reporting role for the Producer Register Limited (PRL). All tyre producers and retailers are statutorily obliged to be members of the Scheme.
Minister Bruton said, “The results of the first year of this Scheme have been very promising – 31,000 tonnes of waste tyres were recovered and properly disposed of. We now have detailed data on the tyre market in Ireland. We will now consider the recommendations of the report and consider how best to extend the Scheme to other categories of tyres – truck and tractor tyres, for example.”
Mark Gillick, speaking for RepakELT told Tyre and Rubber Recycling that there had been more tyres recorded than anticipated and almost double the retail outlets registered than had been expected, this was all new data to RepakELT.
The review of the Scheme, which contains 15 recommendations, will now be circulated to stakeholders for their consideration.
Minister Bruton added, “The Climate Action Plan includes an action to expand our Producer Responsibility Schemes to new areas. We must ensure that producers take responsibility for the environmental impact of disposing of goods they put on the market.”
 In establishing the Scheme, it was agreed that a review of the data flow and scheme operation would be undertaken at 6 and 12 months after its introduction. The Scheme was kept under close examination for the initial six months, and three amendments were carried out to the Regulations. The Department engaged an independent body, RPS Group, to carry out a review of year one of the operation of the Scheme. The completed report is now available to view or download on the RepakELT website.
