London (Agencies): A BBC investigation has revealed that millions of waste tyres exported from the UK to India for recycling are being funneled into an illegal black market, where they are processed in makeshift furnaces. This unregulated practice poses significant health and environmental hazards, as dangerous gases and chemicals are released during the process.
Approximately 50 million tyres are discarded annually in the UK, with half of them sent abroad for recycling. Officially, these tyres are meant to be processed in regulated facilities. However, the Tyre Recovery Association (TRA) estimates that 70% of these tyres end up in makeshift Indian pyrolysis plants instead. These plants use extreme heat in oxygen-free environments to extract materials like steel, oil, and carbon black, but the crude methods employed create hazardous by-products that devastate local communities and ecosystems.
Industry insiders, including Elliot Mason of the tyre recycling company Rubber World, claim this issue is an open secret. “I don’t imagine there’s anybody in the industry that doesn’t know it’s happening,” Mason said. Campaigners and organizations like the TRA argue that the UK government is aware of the illegal exports but has not taken sufficient action to address the crisis.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) insists it enforces strict controls on waste tyre exports, with penalties that include unlimited fines and jail time. Yet campaigners remain skeptical, as the problem persists on a massive scale, drawing attention to the need for more effective oversight and accountability.
The report raises urgent questions about the UK’s role in this international environmental disaster and highlights the devastating consequences of inadequate enforcement in the global waste recycling chain.