Solution for Worn Out Tyres Proposed

Only a day after reports slamming the endemic practice of re-selling worn out tyres in South Africa comes news of a potential remedy to this life threatening state of affairs.

South African consumers may soon have to pay a 15 Rand (£1.10) levy on passenger car tyres and a 140 Rand (£10.20) levy on truck tyres as an environmental fee earmarked to fund a national recycling programme aimed at dealing with the 11 million worn out tyres the country discards every year.

One of the requirements of this new recycling scheme is that tyres will have to be mutilated to ensure they are not resold and back on the road. The urgency of a policy such as this was highlighted in November 2006 when surveys taken on South African toll roads revealed that 50 per cent of all vehicles wear fitted with faulty tyres.
It has been suggested that tyres could be shredded and used in rubber carpets, roads and sports fields. Their largest use would be as a fuel, replacing coal in cement kilns.