In its recent press release, the Tyre Recovery Association (TRA) explains the crucial importance of adhering to legal Duty of Care compliance when handling end-of-life tires in UK, as failure to do so can lead to significant financial consequences. Contrary to what many seem to believe, that duty begins not at the point of disposal but from the very moment a used tire is removed from a wheel. In the past, this salient fact has been all to frequently brushed aside by those who generate waste or even properly addressed by our regulators. Now at last attitudes seem to be changing.

The Environment Agency (EA) has trumpeted a massive £100000.00 fine plus costs imposed on a tire retailer accused of feeding some 250000 end-of-life tires over the course of a year to recovery sites whose two T8 permits allowed for just a fraction of that amount. Facts that the most simple Duty of Care checks would have verified.

Worse still, the retailer in question was found by the Agency to have maintained totally inadequate records in clear breach of statutory regulations.

The TRA has long urged the EA and other regulators to attack poor and illegal practices in the recovery chain from the very obvious start point of when an end-of-life tire is first removed from its wheel, only then will compliance standards across the whole recovery chain be improved and ignorance of the law rightfully rejected as a valid defence.

TRA also reports that the Environment Agency has taken note of these concerns.