One third of garages, tyre dealers, and tyre repairers have had old tyres illegally fly-tipped at their site according to a new survey published by the Environment Agency. The survey, which questioned 225 randomly selected garages and tyre firms about their knowledge and experience of tyre disposal, found that a third of all questioned companies had experienced fly-tipping of tyres at their site. Around one in ten said that it happened on a regular basis.

The fly-tipping of tyres is estimated to cost the industry, local authorities, the Environment Agency and landowners around £2.5 million a year. It is usually carried out by cheap, unregistered companies that are operating illegally. The UK discards around 50 million used tyres a year, approximately 134,000 worn tyres every day. Under the duty of care requirements, anyone disposing of tyres needs to make sure that they take all reasonable steps to ensure their safe storage and disposal and that they should only be transported by a waste carrier that has registered with the Environment Agency.

Ralph Crouch, Construction & Tyres Programme Manager at the Environment Agency said: "Fly-tipping of tyres causes no end of problems for the environment, misery for local communities and costs the taxpayer and landowners a lot of money. On top of that, this survey confirms what we have thought for some time, that legitimate tyre disposal companies are paying to get rid of tyres dumped on them by unscrupulous fly-tippers. "That‘‘s why its very important that people, garages or companies looking to dispose of tyres makes sure that anyone they contract to do it for them is registered to do so. Not least because anyone failing to do so is breaching the duty of care requirements and could find themselves on the receiving end of a hefty fine."

Anyone can check whether a company is a registered waste carrier by calling the Environment Agency on 08708 506 506.

NOTES

Other findings of the survey include:

· 90 per cent of respondents said that they were aware of the legal (duty of care) requirements placed on them to ensure the legal disposal of waste tyres but
· 44 per cent could not name (unprompted) any of the elements of duty of care
· only 50 per cent were aware that they could also be fined an unlimited amount

Businesses Surveyed

225 businesses drawn at random

· 89% garage services
· 9% tyre dealers
· 2% tyre repair/retreading
· 86% of the respondents were directors, owners, site managers of the businesses
· 91% businesses < 10 employees
· 68% < 5 employees · 48% not a member of a trade association
· 42% handled 220 tyres/month

Most tyre waste is regarded as controlled waste and needs to be handled in accordance with the duty of care requirements specified in the Environmental Protection Act 1990. It requires that all reasonable steps are taken to ensure their safe storage and disposal, and they should only be transported by a registered waste carrier.

The six key elements of Duty of Care are:

· That waste tyres are safely stored on their site until transported
· That any collectors used must be authorised by the Environment Agency
· That they have a duty of care to check that the collector is authorised
· That any waste tyres must be transferred to an authorised facility
· That a Waste Transfer Note is completed for every transfer of waste
· That they must retain a copy of the Waste Transfer Note for at least two years

This applies to anyone who produces or imports, keeps or stores, transports, treats, recycles or disposes of tyreshttp://www.>