Tyre Disposal & The Environmental Charge
After you have had a set of new car tyres fitted, you probably don’t give much thought to what happens to the old set. They just somehow magically disappear, right? Well, in a manner of speaking, yes! Tyres are currently the only product in the UK that legally has to be completely reused or recycled. No tyres go to landfill. This means that tyre disposal is a highly regulated industry, and wherever you get your tyres fitted, there will likely be a small environmental charge that covers paying a tyre disposal to come and dispose of your old tyres.
While you may think it isn’t too much trouble to get rid of your 4 tyres, when you consider that on average, 100,000 tyres are replaced every single day, that amounts to half a million tonnes of used car tyres every year. All those tyres have to be disposed of responsibly. Some of those tyres will be remoulded into new tyres, some will be given a new use, and some will be ground down into crumbs and used for sports surfaces and other safety flooring, or even carpet underlay.
Your small environmental charge goes towards ensuring that we are not over run with illegal tyre dumps, or landfills full of car tyres not decomposing.