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BBC File On 4 Investigates
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The Environment Agency (EA) has launched a comprehensive review into shipments of waste tyres from the UK to India.
Last week, BBC File on 4 Investigates heard that millions of these tyres – sent for recycling – were actually being “cooked” in makeshift furnaces, causing serious health problems and environmental damage.
The pressure group Fighting Dirty has threatened legal proceedings against the EA over what it called a “lack of action” over the issue of tyre exports.
The EA has asked the group to wait until its own review is complete, and it has also asked File on 4 Investigates to share the evidence from its investigation.
The UK generates about 50 million waste tyres (nearly 700,000 tonnes) every year. According to official figures, about half of these are exported to India, supposedly to be recycled.
But BBC File on 4 Investigates revealed that some 70% of tyres exported to India from the UK and the rest of the world are being sent to makeshift industrial plants, where they are “cooked” in order to extract steel, small amounts of oil as well as carbon black – a powder or pellet that can be used in various industries.
Conditions at these plants – many of which are in rural backwaters – can be toxic and harmful to public health, as well as potentially dangerous.
In January, two women and two children were killed in an explosion
The post Environment Agency orders review into tyre recycling after BBC probe first appeared on EnviroLink Network.