In what should be good news for the environment, Theresa May’s government has produced a proposal for an Environmental plan. An initial scan of the 155 page document leaves this writer suspecting that this is a smoke screen latching onto popular anger about oceanic plastic waste and the ongoing ivory trade to detract from other issues.
Government Looking to Improve Waste Management Options for the UK
However, in the newspeak, there are a couple of statements that suggest a drive to improve waste management, though we have heard the example below several times before:
“We must also ensure that we are not simply exporting waste to other countries. Better intelligence about criminal activity and targeted inspections are estimated to have cut illegally exported electrical and household waste from England by 17% between 2014 and 2016, saving the UK economy £2.75m over the two years.”
Yet still, we see our waste being exported to destinations with no end use certification being returned to the EA.
One other point that may or may not have an impact upon tyre recovery and recycling:
“Reforming our Producer Responsibility systems (including packaging waste regulations) to incentivise producers to take greater responsibility for the environmental impacts of their products. This will include exploring extending producer responsibility requirements to plastic products not currently covered by our existing regimes to create a better market for recycled plastic.”
However, since there is not one single mention of tyres in this document, one might suspect that the tyre industry can rest easy.
The full text of the proposal can be found here.