§ Lord Glentoranasked Her Majesty's Government:
(a) what contingency plans they propose for the disposal of waste rubber tyres after 2003 when they will no longer be disposed of in landfill sites; and
(b) whether they anticipate that they will be able to meet their recycling targets after 2003 as a result of this change. [HL1,996]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Whitty)(a) The Landfill Directive introduces a two-stage diversion of tyres away from landfill: whole tyres in 2003 and shredded tyres in 2006. Value is presently 23WA recovered from around 70 per cent of the 400,000 tonnes of tyres disposed of each year, with the balance landfilled, largely in shredded form.
The Government maintain regular dialogue with the tyre industry on this issue through the Used Tyre Working Group and we remain confident that sufficient tyre recovery capacity will be developed to enable the disposal of tyres to landfill to cease by the specified dates.
(b) Tyres form part of the industrial and commercial waste stream. Diverting them from landfill will contribute to the target of reducing the amount of that waste landfilled to 85 per cent of 1998 levels by 2005 but will not contribute to the Government's targets for the recycling of household waste.