Wednesday’s draft notification by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change for extended producer responsibility (EPR), for waste tyres, was shared by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. If finalised, it will be effective in the new fiscal year.
According to data from an NGT case, India disposes of approximately 275,000 tyres annually but has no comprehensive plan. Over and beyond that, around 3 million waste tyres is imported for recycling. On September 19, 2019, the NGT, in a case regarding the lack of proper management of End-of-Life Tyres/Waste Tyres(ELTs), ordered the Central Pollution Control Board [CPCB] to create a comprehensive waste management strategy for the waste tyres.
The waste tyres can be recycled as crumb rubber (CRMB), crumb rubber modified bitumen, crumb rubber (CRMB), and pyrolysis oils/char. As per media reports from 2019, the petitioner in the NGT case had said that pyrolysis industry in India produces inferior quality products that needed to be banned to prevent environmental damage and that the industry emits highly carcinogenic/cancer-causing pollutants, which are harmful to the respiratory system.
The draft notification mentions the EPR obligation for 2022-23 as 35 per cent of the quantity of new tyres manufactured/imported in 2020-21, EPR obligation of 2023-24 will be 70 per cent of the quantity of new tyres manufactured/imported in 2021-22 and the EPR obligation of 2024-25 would be 100 per cent of the quantity of new tyres manufactured/imported in 2022-23.
After 2024-25 (Year Y), the EPR obligation will be 100 per cent of the quantity of new tyres manufactured/imported in the year (Y-2) and units established after April 1, 2022, the EPR obligation will start after two years (Y) and will be 100 per cent of the new tyres manufactured/imported in the year (Y-2).
EPR obligations would cover both the producers and recyclers waste tyres. The draft notification states that registration would be mandatory. It would mean that any entity – producer or recycling of waste tire – cannot carry out any business without it. This is a major development because a lot of the tyre-waste recycling or burning takes place in an unorganised and unscientific sector.
Extended Producer Responsibility means that the producer of tyres is responsible for ensuring environmentally sound management of such waste. A Ministry official stated that this term refers to taking all necessary steps to ensure that the waste tyre is managed in such a way as to protect the environment and health from any adverse effects.
The draft notification was published on December 31 under the relevant provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act 1986. Stakeholders and the public were asked to submit objections and suggestions before the deadline of 60 days. After that, it would be finalised.
In order to create a comprehensive action plan for the transformational change in the management of waste tyres, the Central Pollution Control Board was able to establish a committee on ‘Circular Economy and Rubber Recycling Industry’. The committee included representatives from NITI Aayog and Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade.
–IANS
niv/vd
(Only headline and photo of this report might have been reworked slightly by Business Standard staff; the rest is auto-generated from syndicated feeds.
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