The Tyre Trade Journal has learned that a final draft of The Waste Management (Tyres and Waste Tyres) Regulations 2017 is currently with Minister Denis Naughton, Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment. The Minister plans to introduce the new regulations on October 1st.

The Tyre Trade Journal has had sight of the draft regulations and unfortunately, on summary reading, it may be worse that I feared. I believe it is flawed in so many ways that in the current form and the lack of supports, it will be doomed. Here are some points that I would like to highlight.

No enforcement – no compliance
The first glaring omission is a total lack of provision for enhanced enforcement measures as promised by the current and indeed successive Ministers of the Environment. Fixed penalty notices were a key element promised for local authorities (LAs) and Waste Enforcement Regional Lead Authorities (WERLAs) for cost effective enforcement.

Just to remind you of the three WERLAs for the Southern, Eastern and Midlands, and Connacht/Ulster Regions are Cork County Council, Dublin City Council and Leitrim & Donegal County Councils (combined) respectively.

I understand that the Minister is required to have Dáil approval for the penalty amounts in fixed penalty notices. He would then have to debate the requirement for new Tyre Regulations (and fixed penalty notices) in the Dáil, which he is aware of would not attract great support. A lack of enforcement will cost the State revenue and go against a level playing field.

Demand on retailers far too onerous
The reporting requirements are extremely onerous for Retailers. Retailers will have to report what they sold by unit and category each month. They will also have to report what they purchased and from whom they purchased all tyres by unit and category monthly. They will additionally have to report by unit and category what waste tyres were delivered to waste collectors. There are 29 reporting categories, with retailers that sell agricultural tyres expected to distinguish 25 different categories.

And what about the level of difficulties facing licenced tyre collectors picking up to 29 categories of tyres, some by unit numbers, and some by weight.

No provision for reporting second-hand tyres recycled back to market
There appears to be no provision for reporting second-hand tyres recycled back to the market by treatment facilities. You can see our separate but related story this week on a letter sent by Ireland’s largest truck tyre supplier to Minister Naughton outlining serious concerns that it has with the proposed Waste Management (Tyres and Waste Tyres) Regulations 2017 in relation to truck tyres. We believe that these views are strongly supported by the Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA).

Minister giving himself authority to release commercially sensitive data
Another major concern is that the Minister has given himself authority to order the release of commercially sensitive data given to the registration body’s ‘Blackbox’ by producers. This information includes the name, address and sales data of every producer and retailer in Ireland. This is very commercially sensitive and valuable information, which everyone agreed should go to one independent black box only.

Foreign registered producers can report whatever without any legal consequence
The new regulations contain a lot of inconsistencies. For example, there is no legal definition for an “authorised person” in the Irish jurisdiction. This is a requirement for proper accountability by a ‘Producer’ registering from outside the jurisdiction. As it stands, a foreign registered producer can report whatever is convenient without any legal consequence.

There is so much wrong with these regulations that I could fill the Tyre Trade Journal with a commentary. However, to summarise yet again. Enforcement is the major one – without a high level of enforcement, there will be much lower levels of compliance. This will lead to loss of revenues to the State and these regulations will fail miserably.

The second major point (of many) is that the majority of tyre retailers are small or medium sized enterprises and the reporting requirements are extremely onerous for such businesses. The process will need to simplified greatly.

Finally, we have learned that Minister Naughton has written to the ITIA and ITWRA saying he will not approve a second scheme in principle even though a provision for multiple schemes is enshrined in the new legislation. Both tyre industry organisations now believe that he has given support undertakings to Repak ELT, which have not been declared.

After the failure of the his department and the Irish Government to go through the legal EU tender process before awarding Repak the contract to administer the scheme, this further seemingly protective action will no doubt, attract further attention.