Huge quantities of dangerous used tyres left unprocessed

The Audit Office on Wednesday said the company being paid to process massive quantities of used car tyres is failing to do so

In a report, the Audit Office said that used car tyres located at the Vassiliko cement works plant had not been processed, despite the unit getting paid to do so. These tyres had also been included in the quantities Cyprus put in its report to the European Commission as being processed.

“We have pointed out the serious dangers of concentrating such large quantities of tyres in one place,” the report said.

Vassiliko cement works plant is the main management and processing unit for used tyres, the report said, and it uses these tyres as a source of energy for its operational needs.

Companies that collect used tyres take them to the Vassiliko plant, and after they are weighed, the collector pays the plant per tonne of material delivered.

In another case, the report said that though the state had paid for the removal and management of used tyres that had been stored at the Dali industrial area and in Ayios Sozomenos, it has yet to be reimbursed by the company that owned those tyres.

Other issues raised are the lack of information on how many checks the environment department carried out from 2012 to-date at the units collecting, storing, and repurposing used tyres, to ensure their compliance with their licensing terms.

The Audit Office also found that the environmental information programmes companies presented in some cases in their annual reports to the competent authority, are incomplete and do not meet the conditions of their licences.