§ Bob SpinkTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what her estimate is of the stock pile of waste tyres in England in each of the last five years. [78470]
§ Mr. MeacherThese data are not collected centrally in the format requested. However, the Environment Agency estimate that about 13 million tyres are currently stockpiled in 38 sites in England. The majority of the tyres are held within 8 sites, including one which holds about 9 million of the tyres. This site is covered to provide protection.
§ Bob SpinkTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what research she is undertaking into the environmentally safe disposal of waste tyres; [78472]
591W(2) what assessment she has made of civil engineering uses for the environmentally safe use of waste tyres; [78433]
(3) what policies she intends to adopt to (a) utilise and (b) dispose of waste tyres. [78471]
§ Mr. MeacherThe Government in partnership with the tyre industry through the Used Tyre Working Group (UTWG) is investigating alternative disposal, recycling and recovery options for those tyres displaced from landfill with the aim of ensuring that sufficient capacity is available to handle those tyres.
The prospect of the extra required tyre recovery capacity being developed in time for the 2006 ban appears encouraging. It is likely that cement kilns (who use tyres as fuel) will take very significant numbers of tyres provided they obtain the necessary authorisations (four kilns already use tyres).
In addition, the market for tyre granulate is growing. Tyre granulate has a number of applications including carpet underlay and sports and safety surfaces. Government is supporting a number of end-use studies including its incorporation in road surfaces and as an aggregate replacement in concrete. Other studies are looking at new processes to break down used tyres as well as looking at ways of improving the efficiency of present materials recycling operations. Government is also supporting research into the use of tyres in coastal and flood protection schemes.
There is also research underway, funded through the Landfill Tax Credits Scheme in collaboration with the Transport Research Laboratory and the Institute of Civil Engineers, to produce guidance on civil engineering applications for used tyres to stimulate market development. Whole tyres are already used extensively as an engineering material in landfill sites.
More widely, research is underway on creating longer-lasting tyres (without compromising safety) in order to help reduce the amount of tyres entering the waste stream in the first place.