Australia to tyre industry: If you don’t act on recycling, we will

Australia’s government has included tyres on the list of products that industry must ensure are handled and ultimately disposed of in an environmentally appropriate manner. Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek added tyres, along with mattresses and plastics in healthcare products, to the Minister’s product stewardship priority list for 2022–23. This list was published on 8 November during National Recycling Week.

Manufacturers and importers of items on the product stewardship priority list must take responsibility for the impacts of their products on the environment across their entire life cycle. This responsibility goes above and beyond recycling and considers how the development, design, manufacture, import, sale, use and recovery of materials and products can be adjusted to improve environmental outcomes.

Although an industry-led initiative for tyre recycling already operates in Australia, the country’s government considers participation levels in this voluntary programme to be insufficient. By adding tyres to the Minister’s product stewardship priority list, if participation does not increase, the government will consider regulation.

Tanya Plibersek considers an industry-led stewardship approach to be “one of the most efficient and cost-effective ways to reduce a product’s impact on the environment and human health” but notes that “around half of tyre importers do not contribute financially to the current Tyre Product Stewardship Scheme” – and therefore “more needs to be done.” The Minister for the Environment and Water stresses that “the priority list makes our intentions clear – if industry does not act, the Government will.”