Safe Speed Forums

Tyre dump plan ‘could blight lives’
OPPOSITION was mounting this week to plans for a shredder to be brought in to get rid of an estimated five million tyres from a former sawmill site on the edge of Romsey.

As recently reported in The Romsey Advertiser, waste disposal expert, Afropa Limited, has drawn up a planning application for the Ashfield Sawmill site to be used for general industrial use for shredding tyres.

That application had been lodged with Test Valley Borough Council. But as it was a minerals and waste issue, it had to be diverted to Hampshire County Council, which is likely to discuss it at its regulatory committee meeting on September 6.

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The land is in the parish of Romsey Extra and its two Test Valley councillors, Conservatives Caroline Nokes and Ian Hibberd, renewed their objections to it after taking a recent close-up look. Mrs Nokes said: "I have had waste management companies beating a path to my door to inform me that the proposal as it stands for tyre shredding in the open air would not only be a blight on the locality, but also cannot be achieved within the timescale proposed.

"It is our view that action must be taken to clear the site without this speculative and highly inappropriate activity in this location."

Mrs Nokes has also written to Test Valley Borough Council's head of planning, Maddy Winter, and head of environment and health, Laura Taylor.

She has taken issue with estimates that, with the mobile shredder, which would be imported from Germany, the site could be cleared in five years. And she said in her letter: "I am reliably informed that the average tyre shredder can handle one tonne of tyres in an hour and one tonne is approximately 150 regular-sized car tyres.

"If there really are five million tyres on the site, then the shredder would need to work for between 18 and 19 hours a day, seven days a week, in order to clear the tyres within the five-year timescale proposed. Obviously, that is entirely unrealistic."

As well as the potential hazards of insect infestation and noise from the shredder, she has also warned of a smell problem. "I gather that this will be quite significant and, in average wind speeds of 25mph, would carry for an estimated 15 miles."

Romsey Extra Parish Council objected to the initial application on the grounds of unnecessary industrialisation of the countryside. Its chairman, Rod Simpson, said: "We have for some time been very concerned about it. It was a relief to see something happening, but a bit worrying when we looked at some of the details.

"Shredding these tyres is not straightforward. It has its risks and what we want is these tyres removed. We will be considering the details carefully and I am fairly certain we will take a very strong position."

Borough councillor, Ian Hibberd, added: "It should be done in an enclosed building if it does go ahead and no more tyres should be brought on to the site. It could blight the lives of the people living in the neighbouring properties for years."

12:54pm Monday 17th July 2006

* 1983 – Seven million tires burn in Rhinehart, Virginia for nine months, polluting nearby areas with lead and arsenic. The location was cleaned up as a Superfund project from 1983 to 2002.[1]
* 1990 – In Hagersville, Ontario, a fire is started in a 12- to 14-million-tire pile. It burns for 17 days and forces 4,000 people to evacuate.[2]
* 1999 – Lightning strikes a tire dump in Westley, California, which burns for 30 days. Pyrolitic oil flows into a nearby stream and also ignites.

Link!?!

(Sorry, Im feeling *particularly* lazy at present (its the heat))

Having been in a car fitted with remoulds and consequently a passenger in a 450deg spin on a crowded motorway, I don't have the confidence in them. We were very lucky - the blowout induced spin was to the left and we ended up on the hard shoulder/verge (from L1), had we ended up sideways on to L2/L3 traffic on the busy M1, then I wouldn't be typing this. My main memory apart from world spinning around was the woman who must have been just behind us coming back to demand to know why we had chosen to do it!

When they increased the minimum legal tread depth from 1mm to 1.6mm, what did they think was going to happen?

Won't shredding the tyres just convert them into an even less manageable form?

Are there any useful by-products that could be derived from old tyres? They certainly burn well (as GATSOs all over the UK will testify). Some sort of fuel perhaps?

Could they be sold in bulk to poor countries that do not have tyre safety regulations? Chances are that our second-hand tyres are better than what they're using right now.