Giti Tire receives air permit for US plant

The final regulatory approval needed for the construction of Giti Tire’s first plant in the USA has been granted, however local news sources write that this approval has already been appealed.

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control issued an air permit for the plant Giti Tire is building in Richburg, Chester County following agreement from the tyre maker to limit the plant’s volatile organic emissions to 250 tons a year and the release of hazardous air pollutants to 25 tons. Giti will also be required to use a ‘cementless’ tyre making process similar to the Innovative Tire Building Technology employed at Bridgestone’s Aiken facility.

The plant project’s first phase is expected to be complete in 2017 and will result in an annual production capacity of 5 million passenger car and light truck tyres. But before then, Giti Tire will have to reckon with the permit appeal lodged by local resident Dave Cole. According to South Carolina newspaper The State, Cole has called the permit issued by the Department of Health and Environmental Control a “sham permit” as the pollution limits Giti agreed to are only slightly below those required for a major permit, and does not take the second phase of the tyre maker’s factory project into account.