Guillotine cuts into used tyre mountain

By JAMES GARDINER

The huge task of reducing New Zealand's used tyre mountain has begun in Wellington and will roll north.

At Wellington's Southern Landfill in Happy Valley, Waste Tyre Solutions has the job of cutting up 12,000 old tyres.

The solution is hardly rocket science, but the effect of chopping each tyre into quarters is a remarkable 75 to 80 per cent space saving that means the tyres can be buried in the city council's landfill.

After the collapse last year of a Hamilton company contracted to recycle nearly half the country's used tyres, about 82,000 tyres have been piling up on two Waikato properties.

Both major tyre manufacturers have stopped doing retreads because of competition from imported second-hand tyres.

Laughton Shredding Services, of Waitakere, which supplies shredded rubber to horse arenas and playgrounds, has said it cannot take any more tyres and has to send up to half of what it does shred to landfills.

Waste Tyre Solutions director Richard Linthwaite said New Zealand was one of the few countries where landfills would accept tyres not cut up.

Council landfills manager Brian Bouzaid said intact tyres took up a large amount of space, could not be compacted or successfully buried, and presented a fire risk.

Mr Linthwaite said his motorised guillotine was cutting up to 600 car tyres and 40 truck tyres a day.

The operation will move to the Bay of Plenty next.