Waste tyres from UK being sent to furnaces in India causing health, environmental hazards: Report

After a BBC report revealed that millions of tyres from the UK, meant to be recycled in India were actually being "cooked" in furnaces, the Environment Agency (EA) has launched a comprehensive review into shipments from the European country.

According to an investigation by the BBC File on 4 Investigates, every year, about 50 million waste tyres from the UK in need of recycling are exported to various parts of the world including India, which ends up with almost half of the lot.

While officially the tyres should end up in recycling plants, as per the investigation, they are taken to makeshift furnaces where they are heated at very high temperatures (500 degrees Celsius), a process called pyrolysis.

Steel and small amounts of oil are extracted, as well as carbon black - a powder or pellet that can be used in various industries.

The process causes health hazards as well as environmental concerns. The reports states that these pyrolysis plants are situated in rural backwaters and are akin to homemade pressure cookers and produce dangerous gases and chemicals.

A pressure group Fighting Dirty has threatened legal action against the Environment Agency, a non-departmental public body sponsored by the UK government, over "lack of action" in the matter.

The EA, meanwhile, has said the group to wait for its review to get completed and has asked the publication for evidence from its investigation.

Fighting Dirty founder Georgia Elliott-Smith, who has been in correspondence with the EA over this issue since 2023, said it was a "major victory" for the group and that "the government must stop turning a blind eye to the illegal and immoral activity".

In January this year, two women and two children died after an explosion at one such pyrolysis plant in Maharashtra. The investigation has revealed dying vegetation and polluted waterways in villages around the plant. Residents often complain of persistent cough and eye problems.