Agency halts UK tyre burning trial

By Patrick Raleigh, ERJ On-line news editor

London-The UK's Environment Agency (EA) has halted a tyre burning trial at Rugby Cement, near Rugby, UK. The suspension followed the firm's failure to deal with a technical problem that caused plant emissions to exceed permitted levels for nearly three hours.

The EA's continuous monitoring equipment detected that Rugby Cement ran above the permitted level for particulate matter during the night shift on 21 June. The problem was linked to a fault with the plant's electrostatic precipitator, according to the government body.

“After the problem arose the plant continued to burn chipped tyres but this is specifically forbidden by our permit conditions,” said David Hudson, EA environment manager, in a 1 July press statement.

“Whilst the incident itself was probably not of major environmental significance, management failures are unacceptable. The company needs to gain the trust of the local community and failures like this do not help to build such trust,” added Hudson.

Rugby Cement must now develop new operating procedures before it can resume its tyre burning trial, said the EA. The whole future of the trial will be reviewed if on-going investigations show that tyre burning caused the particulate level breach, the Agency added.