The Tyre Recovery Association’s Annual Briefing Day held at Coombe Abbey Hotel in Warwickshire was headlined by Tessa Munt, the MP for Wells and Mendip Hills who delivered the keynote speech attacking the persistent gap between government policy rhetoric and industrial reality. The activist MP drew on her long-standing parliamentary interventions on end-of-life tyre (ELT) exports from the UK to India, as well as engagements with constituent businesses in Somerset as she criticised government inaction and highlighted four key issues for government to focus on.
Tessa Munt Calls on Government to Make Key Regulatory Changes
Criticising government’s reliance on superficial slogans while domestic capacity sits stranded, the MP pointed to the double standard of the Environment Agency (EA) enforcing strict Digital Waste Tracking on compliant domestic operators while exercising misplaced goodwill and extending deadlines for non-compliant overseas exporters. Prior to the EA watering down the new rules they introduced a year ago, proof-of-arrival compliance hovered at a dismal 20 percent. She went on to point out that while raw waste is offshored, over 150,000 tonnes of licensed domestic UK recycling and remanufacturing capacity sits completely idle.
She said, “Now, as a principle, digital tracking is welcome. But how on earth can the Government justify enforcing ironclad digital compliance on British businesses operating on home soil, while simultaneously rowing back on geotagged digital evidence for whole tyres shipped 5,000 miles away to Indian ports? Why is there infinite official patience for overseas brokers, but administrative heavy-handedness for domestic re-processors? It is a double standard that is actively destroying British industry.”
Concluding her remarks, the MP finished with a call on the government to make four key reform to drive action and develop Britain’s industrial base:
- Immediate Statutory withdrawal of T8 exemptions. Lay the statutory instrument without further delay to create a level playing field with all operators in an audited permit regime.
- Adopt the Australian Shred-Only export model. Design out the wrongdoing by banning the export of whole and baled tyres to force initial processing to take place under UK environmental standards.
- Ironclad enforcement of Digital Proof of arrival. Instantly revoke export licences for brokers unable to provide timestamped, geotagged proof of delivery to accredited facilities.
- Statutory green public procurement: Enforce mandatory quotas requiring public bodies to use a percentage of remanufactured tyres on their fleets and vehicles and drive greater use of rubberised asphalt.
Broadening the traditional agenda to include insights from closely aligned issues, the TRA welcomed the RAC Foundation to the day. Director, Steve Gooding, delivered a presentation on the state of Britain’s roads and helped develop industry thinking on how best to promote rubberised asphalt to UK highways managers and local authorities.
The deepening delegate list spanning small independent collectors, major reprocessors, retread manufacturers, equipment suppliers, global tyre producers and senior policy advisors who attended the TRA Briefing Day.
Peter Taylor OBE, Secretary General of the TRA, commented: “The TRA Briefing Day proves that the British tyre recovery sector is united, highly innovative and ready to grow. Having around 100 key players and all four leading trade associations in one room shows that our industry is speaking with one voice.
“If the UK’s tyre recovery sector does not grow it will soon disappear from these shores. We are gradually making progress in getting government to understand this, but there is a long way to go. We have the domestic processing infrastructure, the technical capability and the private capital ready to build a world-class circular economy. What we lack is a regulator and a Government willing to back domestic industry by ending illegal whole tyre exports and enforcing green procurement. Tessa Munt MP highlighted this in her powerful speech.”
