With the new Art. 228 of Law
Act 152/2006, Italy has entered into the EU regulation about used tires
recycling and dismantelling.
Since June 9th, it is mandatory for tire manufacturers and
importers/distributors to take care of dismantelling and/or recycling a
volume of used and scrapped tires comparable to the volume of new tires
sold (or introduced in their national market) by them. They can do it
by themselves, or associating into some cooperative business, and must
fulfill it every year.
According to Ecopneus (a consortium made by the 7 biggest tire
manufacturers and importers in Italy) "the
environmental contribution is not a tax, but it's the necessary amount
to help the process of completely dismantelling used and scrapped
tires. It is like rationalizing a cost that drivers have been already
paying for, since long time. That cost will only be made clear compared
to the tire purchase price: it will be paid only by the ones who
purchase tires, and it will be addressed only to support used tires
collection and recycling operation, under tight control of the
Department of Environment. As of today, tire shops and service stations
have paid some certain amount to the subject who collected their used
tire stocks. As such, that cost has been always included in management
costs for those businesses, as well as other fixed costs included in
the business. With this new regulation, the cost simply is separated
and clearly stated in the invoice, so that it becomes easily traceable
and controllable by everybody".
Ecopneus is expected to manage
most part of the 380.000 tons of scrapped tires ending their life every
year in Italy, and ensure their collection, dismantelling in proper
plants and ricovery of their related materials to recycle them in other
businesses.
According to a census performed by Legambiente, between 2005 and 2010,
1049 illegal dump sites have been discovered in our national territory,
covering more than 6milions sqm of scrapped tires.