The Bay of Plenty Regional Council has commenced a prosecution against Ecoversion Logistics Ltd in relation to tyre dumps at Kawerau and Waihi.
The first call for the prosecution will be at Tauranga District Court on 21 April, says a statement today from the regional council.
A Kawerau tyre storer is being prosecuted.
SunLive reported in November 2015 that the Kawerau-based recycling company could face court action for failing to remove a tyre stockpile in Kawerau.
In April 2015, EcoVersion were paid $25,000 to remove around 150,000 tyres from Hamilton. The tyres were moved to locations in Kawerau and a Waihi Beach Quarry, and a couple of other places.
The Bay of Plenty Regional Council issued an abatement notice in June 2015, preventing Ecoversion Logistics Ltd from dumping any more tyres at Waihi and Kawerau.
EcoVersion was then issued with a second abatement notice ordering it to remove the tyres from its Spencer Ave site in Kawerau.
In a statement made at the time it bought the tyres Ecoversion said it was introducing a "state-of-the-art" tyre processing facility to New Zealand and would recycle the tyres with zero waste.
"The facility will be operating towards the end of 2015 and EcoVersion will be guaranteeing that no tyres disposed at our facility will be exported or landfilled."
Kawerau District councillor Rex Savage said at the time that he 'couldn't think of any business that started operating before it built its plant, which was meant to be coming from Tauranga”.
Ecoversion Logistics Ltd formerly traded as Kawerau Tyre Storage Ltd. Its sole director is listed on the NZ Companies office as Jonathon Lindsay Spencer, of Grey Lynn.
New Zealand generates about four million end-of-life tyres each year, says Environment Minister Dr Nick Smith in October 2015.
He was appealing for ideas on what to do with the end of life tyres, of which about a million are re-exported for material recovery. The rest either go to land fill or are ‘not responsibly disposed of'.
The government was seeking innovative bids from businesses that have the technology and marketing skills to develop a practical use for the waste tyres that will generate jobs and a better environmental outcome.
2 comments
End of Life Tyres
Posted on 15-04-2016 12:18 | By Gigilo
The truth is that the government is not interested in, one, making the dumping of used tyres illegal. Two, Legislate for a compulsory tariff (about $6 on a car tyre) to be applied to new tyres to help fund the various recycling methods available. Or buy into the stewardship system similar to that being run in Canada (Canada has no secondhand or used tyres) and now in full swing in Australia. I was one of the 100 people who attended a End of Life Tyre Conference in Auckland last year that was attended by local and international speakers and those involved in the tyre industry. The conference was bought to a stand still, you could have heard a pin drop when the Minister Nick Smith's representative told the conference that the government was not interested in the foreseeable future of addressing the issue.It is not profitable to recycle tyres.
Well Well Well
Posted on 15-04-2016 21:02 | By The Caveman
It is my understanding that a European firm was poised to set up a tyre recycling operation about seven years ago in NZ. The upside was that the proposed plant would EAT all of the used tyres in NZ and recycle them into usable products. The problem was that the volume of used tyres in NZ was not sufficient to make the project economically viable. They wanted to import used tyres from around the Pacific, especially the Pacific Islands. PROBLEM
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