JK Tyre‘s R Mukhopadhyay speaks about India’s tyre recycling issues
Indian Government to Fund Tyre Recycling
In an interview in the Economic Times E-Auto in India, R Mukhopadhyay of JK Tyre speaks of INR 300-cr govt fund in offing to deal with scrap tyres.
R Mukhopadhyay, is the director of R&D at JK Tyre & Industries Limited. He was speaking about the changing tyre landscape in India and commented JK believes that the government is creating INR 200 crore – INR 300 crore fund to address the scrap tyre issue in the coming years. His responses to questions on tyre recycling suggest that discussions on some form of producer responsibility scheme are well under way. It is, however, interesting that the prime stakeholders at this stage, are thought to be the collectors of the tyres rather than the norm of the tyre manufacturers, though they are involved.
Asked about the risks of waste tyres in India, Mukhopadhyay responded; “Tyre scrap is a legal problem, which India will face very soon. As the number of vehicles increases, the problem of tyre waste will multiply. Besides, Europe and USA are dumping waste tyres in the Gulf and countries like India. Today about 3 billion tyres are being manufactured globally out of which 1 billion tyres are scrapped every year. And this is a huge problem globally. It is high time that we found some alternative way.
“The government is in the process of replicating the vehicle scrappage policy in the tyre industry. Collection of end-of-life tyres at one place requires massive logistic costs. Then these scrap tyres have to go for distribution in different channels for recycling and reuse. This whole process requires huge funds, and the government is looking at how to get those funds allocated.
“Today the customer gets some money for scrapping tyres but with the implementation of tyre scrapping norms end users will have to pay. So, a tax collection-like model is coming under regulation for end-of-life tyres. Anybody changing the tyre they have to pay certain tax. By our understanding, the government is creating INR 200 crore –INR 300 crore fund to address the issue of scrap tyres in the years to come.”
Further asked what the impacts of this regulation might be, and who the stakeholders would be, Mukhopadhyay answered; “Currently, we are selling the scrap tyres to the tyre dealers in bulk. What they do with those tyres nobody knows. A very large unorganised channel is functional, and the Government has to organise this through this regulation. The scrap dealers will be the prime partners, then come tyre manufacturers, companies involved in reclaimed rubbers and recycling associations. Furthermore, the state government has to be one of the partners in order to allocate land and the last nodal point will be the Ministry of Environment.”