Tyre pile fire danger

What began as a Napier-based export business and a way to clean up the environment has turned into a huge and potentially dangerous tyre mountain - with the man who tried to get the venture off the ground now facing prosecution.
Bill Lambert, who has a business background which includes the metal-recycling business, said when starting out last April that he wanted to do something for the environment, as well as explore and expand export opportunities to the Far East and in the long-term create jobs.
But as early as last May the tyre mountain attracted the attention, and disapproval, of Napier City Council which served an abatement notice on Mr Lambert to remove the tyres.
"As we became more aware of the pile we spoke to Bill," the council's regulatory services manager Mike Webster said.
"We have no problem with the recycling scheme but we do have a problem with the site."
The abatement notice ran out in August and as the tyre mountain had grown rather than declined the council initiated prosecution proceedings for non-compliance of the removal notice.
Hawke's Bay Regional Council has also issued two notices to Mr Lambert but the time to comply with them had not yet expired.
Mr Webster said he had seen at least 10 containers of compressed tyres leave the site but believed the recession in the recycling industry may have kicked in.
Efforts to contact Mr Lambert today were unsuccessful. The number for his company, East Coast Exporting, had been disconnected and a voice message on his mobile phone said it had been "temporarily disconnected".
Mr Lambert had set up the business to act as a collection point for used tyres which were delivered from around the country.
"For me it was one of those headaches that I thought I'd like to have a crack at sorting out," he said at the time.
He said he was unsettled by the number of tyres going into landfills and wanted to do something about it.
Mr Lambert visited China about three years ago and said he made good market contacts which indicated he could ship out compressed and baled tyres in 5000-tonne lots.
He even bought a specialised baling machine from a South Island company. But the venture had stalled after only a small amount of tyres were baled up and exported. Bad weather, which muddied the accessway to the stacked bales, as well as rising shipping costs and the failure of markets in the far east, saw the venture come to a halt.
But the incoming flood of old tyres did not.
They continued to roll on to the Pandora site creating a landscape which has the fire service worried.
"If there was a fire it would be a big risk for the community and a danger to the environment," Napier chief fire officer Paul Baxter said.
Mr Webster said the options for disposing of the tyres all cost money - with estimates from several hundred thousand up to $2 million. "It falls to the occupier to dispose of them but if he is unable to then it falls to the land owner and that is the Crown."