Idea proposes new life for old tyres

A Wanganui man believes he has the answer to the New Zealand-wide problem of disposing of 4.7million tyres every year.

Te Rino Rapana has been collecting end-of-life tyres and storing them on 2ha in Brunswick Rd since leasing the land in July last year. With some backing finance and a contract to import the necessary equipment he believes he will be on to a winner, converting those tyres into a product with many uses.

He wasn't prepared to say more about the intentions of his company, Farmcorp, because he doesn't want anyone else to get hold of his idea. But he said people who heard it - including a staff member at Wanganui District Council, a participant in the Tyrewise initiative and the co-leader of the Green Party, Metiria Turei - thought it was a good one.

He had a solution that no one else had, and was poised to make the next move this year. "It's a big business. Pulling this off will bring a lot of money into this town."

Brunswick Rd neighbours have complained about his store of tyres, and he said he had reduced it by giving some to farmers.

Disposing of end-of-life tyres has been a problem in New Zealand for years. Horizons Regional Council requires tyres to be stored above ground and in a secure area where there is no risk of arson or of catching alight. There is no limit on how many can be stored, or for how long.

An established Wanganui business, Burgess Matting & Surfacing, uses 30 tonnes of recycled tyres a month to make product. Mr Rapana has asked the owner, Russell Burgess, whether his business would make Farmcorp product as well.

Getting a new business going in the current economic environment wouldn't be easy, Mr Burgess predicted.

Tim Britton, at Wanganui's Beaurepaires For Tyres, said businesses like his charged customers an extra $5 for new tyres, to cover the cost of their eventual disposal. It usually cost the businesses upwards of $3 to dispose of each car tyre.

Wilson St business Wanganui Tyres & Alloys owns a $1400 machine that cuts up tyres for disposal to landfill - because they cannot be landfilled while still whole. That machine saves the company $1100 a month in disposal costs. "If you came up with a way to get rid of them overnight you would be a millionaire. They're a huge problem," Mr Britton said.

Problem or not, tyres represent a source of energy and raw material. There are about six New Zealand businesses that take them apart to re-use the materials, and in the past some tyres were exported to Third World countries. Mr Burgess said that under controlled conditions they could also be burned cleanly.

But with the high cost of transport and few businesses using the raw materials, most New Zealand tyres end up in landfills or to farmers to help store silage.

Others are just being stockpiled. In January a Hamilton firm was fined $77,000 for dumping up to a million tyres on a Waikato property. On February 22 some tyres at Scrap Metal Wanganui in Rogers St caught fire, making black smoke that could be seen for kilometres.

Horizons senior environmental protection officer Rebecca Fergus said that, burned at low temperatures, tyres released noxious contaminants into air and soil.

"Burning tyres is a prohibited activity. Depending on the scale of the burning people can be issued with a warning, a $1000 infringement fine or be prosecuted. If arson is involved then we'll look at how the tyres were stored and whether they'd been told in the past to make sure the tyres were secure."

Amid all this fuss and bother, industry stakeholders are using Government funding in the Tyrewise initiative, which aims to find better ways to deal with end-of-life tyres. A proposal from Tyrewise is expected by the end of June. The Environment Ministry will then decide whether to act on it.