Assessment of disposal and recycling of waste tyres in Brazil

Abstract

Waste tyres discarded and accumulated in inadequate places represent a threat to the environment and public health. The problem related to the final disposal of such a solid waste occurs in every country in the world; thus, laws and standards that regulate, control, and assess solid waste management, such as waste tyres, are necessary. In Brazil, since 2009, manufacturers and importers must collect and properly dispose of a waste tyre for each new tyre sold. The National Solid Waste Policy implemented in 2010 requires tyre manufacturers, importers, distributors, and traders to implement reverse logistics systems. In this scenario, this work aims to assess the evolution of waste tyres disposal and recycling in Brazil and verify the compliance with the resolutions of Brazilian environmental agencies, also listing the main destinations. The methodology adopted consists of examining bulletins and documents from Brazilian environmental agencies between 2010 and 2019. As a result, the fulfilment of the national destination goal for the manufacturers and importers of new tyres, and the effective amount of tyres disposed of in an environmentally acceptable way, was not reached in any of the evaluated years. On the other hand, new tyre manufacturers met the target every year, while importers did not. From 2010 to 2019, the main types of disposal activities were co-processing (2,615,299 t), granulation (1,241,456 t) and lamination (495,624 t). On average, the Southeast region has the highest percentage of waste tyres disposal (57.0%), followed by the South region (23.0%), while the lowest percentage was observed in the North region (2.2%). Despite the regulations for the reuse of waste tyres, the practices adopted in Brazil cannot be considered environmentally adequate. In addition, it is important to note that the data analyzed refer to the information collected, which may not represent the total number of companies existing in the country.