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MATRDS Urges Government to Tackle Waste Tyre Issue
MATRDS President Tee Tau (right) and Secretary Goh Kiang Weng urge the government to
The Malaysian tyre industry had faced the issue of waste tyres for many years. With the number of vehicles increas- ing rapidly in the country, the disposal of this end-of-life item has become a growing concern. To urge the government to for- tyre issue, the Malaysian Association of Tyre Retreaders & Deal- ers Societies (MATRDS) held a press conference recently.
“Since the economy reopened on 1st October last year, many tyre dealers across Malaysia began to face the challenge of managing waste tyres as the tyre recycling factories refused to accept them. In fact, the tyre recycling plant is the only le- gal channel to scrap waste tyres but many of them had wound up during the pandemic, resulting in today’s predicament,” said President Tee Tau.
- ernments and without any alternative solutions, he said tyre
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dealers had to stack their waste tyres at the store front and this - ronment Department, Ministry of Health and municipal councils due to waste tyres being placed too close to the road or mos- quitoes were found breeding in the water that had collected in the waste tyres.
He added that before the pandemic, former President Goh Soo Chay called on government departments to seek solutions and that they would try their best to cooperate as much as possible, but the problem remained unresolved.
MATRDS Secretary Goh Kiang Weng said that as tyre dealers were only an agent to sell tyres, it was unfair for them to han- dle waste tyres. “Since these tyres were used by consumers, shouldn’t the consumers be responsible for the disposal? We are facing this waste tyre problem for more than 10 years now. After the pandemic, it has become more serious. Although the whole of Malaysia is facing this waste tyre problem, the situa- tions vary. In some states, tyre recycling factories are very slow in collecting scrapped tyres. Previously, the collectors collect them for free, but now some charge RM1 while others charge RM 2 for a tyre.”
He pointed out that the tyre industry should not bear the waste tyre disposal cost and it should be the government’s responsibil- ity. After all, this was a matter of national environment protection. “We also urge the government to stop dealers from importing imported waste tyres is higher than that for local ones and this had slowed down the recycling of local waste tyres. We hope our government would take this issue seriously and come up with a good solution as the tyre industry is willing to cooperate,” he added.
