Kazakhstan adopts new tire recycling standards

Kazakhstan is introducing a new standard for recycling of tires, Tengrinews.kz reports citing standardization expert of Kazakhstan Center for Support of Sustainable Development Yuliya Dushkina. “This standard will officially come into effect on July 1, 2013, almost a year after its approval. This was done to give the entrepreneurs - both legal entities and individuals - time to get ready for implementation of its requirements, establish contacts with recycling companies and set up the system of collection and transfer of tires to specialized processing companies,” Yuliya Dushkina said. The standard is made in compliance with Kazakhstan’s Ecological Code and provides ecological security and feasible system of collection and recycling of worn out tires and wheels, as well as sets up the requirements on the stages of their life cycle: collection, storage, transportation, recycling and processing. The new standard requires that tire wastes are collected separately and transferred to special companies for processing. The companies have to have the necessary equipment for processing such wastes, as well as the documents to accompany the process of rubber wastes processing. The standard also contains a ban for unauthorized burning and burial of tires at special sites, placement of waste tires at unauthorized junkyards or dumps. According to Dushkina, the processing system has been in place in Kazakhstan for several years and there are several companies dealing with the wastes processing. “Scrap tires are collected at separate platforms. The requirements to such platforms are not high. They just have to be free standing and fenced. Certain quantity of tires are accumulated at such platforms and then transported to the processing facilities. Kazakhstan has several recycling companies. Kazakhstan Rubber Recycling is one of the biggest recycling companies that has initiated this standard,” she explained and added that no penalties had been set for failure to use new standards so far. According to Yuliya Dushkina, reception and processing of old tires are performed on a contract basis. “It is even possible to pay those who bring the tires or it is possible that one will have to pay to recycle the tires. Everything is based on a contract. Right now the Ministry considers adopting the law on expansion of the responsibility of tire producers, i.e. this mechanism will be more clearly stated in the law,” the expert said. By Shynar Ospanova