Page 42 - The Tyreman N53 2022-02
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retreading & tyre recycling
Tyre Recycling in SE Asia Needs Promotion
Recycling is primarily driven by both, there is a real chal-
lenge for the environment.
We could look at tyre recycling in Eu- rope, which is by no means perfect, but the key driver was the ban on 2011. This created a scenario where the industry was pushed to deal with its waste. The tyre industry knew this legislation was coming, as did various national governments, and they prepared a producer responsi- bility ethos. For the most part, this saw Extended Producer Responsi- bility (EPR) agencies established to handle the waste tyre arising from key tyre manufacturers and import- ers; if they sold 100,000 tyres, they had to recover 100,000 tyres.
The majority of EU countries opted for an EPR management scheme (or schemes), with the notable excep- tions of the UK and Germany. They operate a free market but still claim a high recovery rate – higher than 80 per cent. Denmark has a tax-based tyre management system.
This sounds good when we look at European Tyer & Rubber Manufac- showing recovery rates as high as 99 per cent. However, we need to remember that these are just the collection rates. The recycling rates are not so crystal clear.
Europe exports a lot of its tyre aris- ings from third parties, such as India, Pakistan, Turkey, among other coun- tries. Even within the EU, there are issues with internal exports under- cutting German tyre collectors. One of them is a set fee for tyre collection via an EPR scheme with built-in lee- way to allow End of Life Tyres (ELT) to be delivered to cement kilns in a free market at a higher gate fee than the free market might allow.
However, as a rule, EPR schemes work towards managing end of life
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tyres and do so in an environmen- tally sound manner. Tyre & Rubber Recycling recently looked at the growing EPR schemes in South America, where most countries have adopted such a scheme.
As for South East Asia, the fact that this region is the home of the rubber industry explains why it is, for the most part, behind the times with tyre recycling legislation.
According to a study by Allied Mar- ket Research: “Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and other growing econo- mies constitute the Southeast Asian region. In recent years, these coun- tries saw a surge in the presence of international automobile component manufacturers. The abundant avail- ability of rubber and cheap (labour) attracts international automotive tyre manufacturers to set up their production facilities in the region. The demand for natural rubber in Southeast Asia would continue to push a departure from traditional farming techniques and towards rubber plantations. Thailand is the rubber, accounting for 97 per cent of global output, followed by Indone- sia, Vietnam and Malaysia. On-site
