Damage is being done by UK waste tyres. The environmental damage that occurs because of our over-reliance on India as an export market is now well documented. Industry watchers should be familiar with this. Less obvious is the damage done to Britain's economy. By continuing to allow the existence of an uneven playing field, not only are responsible operators finding it harder to operate profitably but significant industrial opportunities fail to progress.

The current UK policy on waste tyres damages the environment and our economy.

With approximately 12 months left before sweeping new rules go live across the European Union, the UK sits at an industrial crossroads. We have a significant window of opportunity to reform our own domestic regulatory framework to stay ahead of the European Union's forward-thinking Clean Industrial Deal. By establishing a proactive policy response to new rules across the Channel, the UK could secure its domestic feedstock and unlock a world-class market for high-value new UK industrial businesses.

The EU's updated Waste Shipment Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2024/1157, will heavily restrict the export of whole, end-of-life tyres (ELTs) to non-OECD nations by May 2027. Under these incoming rules, waste materials can no longer simply be exported out of sight and out of mind; instead, destination nations must explicitly prove they possess environmentally sound management capabilities via rigorous, independent tracking frameworks. Without government action to keep pace with the rest of the continent, the UK will be left behind.

For the British waste tyre sector, this leaves us at a crossroads. Continue as we are, exporting our environmental waste to be siphoned off into the highly polluting system of batch pyrolysis, or seize an economic and environmental opportunity. By addressing new standards, the UK can position itself to build its own path to a green revolution. True domestic resilience requires us to ensure our internal processing capabilities operate to the optimum, giving institutional green investors the certainty they crave to back long-term infrastructure.

To support our regulatory bodies in achieving these elevated environmental and economic aims, the path forward is to simplify the enforcement process directly at the source. We must relieve the burden on officials at the Environment Agency. Even with the best of intentions, it is becoming clear they are overwhelmed by the administrative task of enhanced verification, with its well-intended geo-tagging, in its efforts to eliminate malign actors and force them to change their ways.

By mandating a strict physical standard, requiring that all exported tyres are mechanically processed into shred or crumb before they leave our shores, we can effectively design out administrative complexity and design in industrial opportunity. That is why the TRA have long been calling for a uniform "shred-only" standard. It will provide an un-bypassable physical barrier against illegal disposal, drastically reducing environmental risks overseas. The Australian model demonstrates this and will level the playing field for legitimate domestic operators.

Adopting a mandatory shred-only policy for exports will transform an administrative box-ticking exercise into a multi-million-pound engine for domestic economic growth.

The infrastructure to support this green revolution is not hypothetical; it already exists. Currently, the UK possesses at least 150,000 tonnes of licensed domestic tyre recycling capacity which is idle, waiting to be deployed. Activating our dormant infrastructure is the starting lap to activating millions of pounds of green capital, held back by an unsupportive regulatory landscape that sees tyres as waste rather than resource.

Through a positive, streamlined regulatory environment, prioritising shred-only exports and one that actually delivers the long-promised end to T8 exemptions, we can build our circular economy. The UK has the immediate capability to process over 300,000 tonnes of annual arisings and rapidly build new capacity, generating skilled green jobs and establishing a secure supply chain of high-grade secondary raw materials for new industries, such as sustainable aviation fuel, rubberised asphalt and industrial standard carbon black. That is how the British government can supercharge a new generation of domestic industries.

The sceptics may ask, how can I say this with such confidence? As already mentioned, look south to Australia. There, an injection of regulatory certainty activated private infrastructure investment virtually overnight, giving birth to a flourishing secondary processing industry while eliminating their overseas environmental footprint. The blueprint has been tried, tested and proven.

The Environment Agency is to be congratulated in their work to tackle the issues of UK waste tyre exports. Their data transparency on exports has given us a real baseline from which we could confidently move forward when the essential policy reforms allow. By keeping pace with the EU's upcoming standards, actually transitioning away from legacy exemptions and mandating mechanical processing, the UK can take environmental responsibility and spark a new engine of industrial growth.

We have a clear line of sight to the UK tyre industry's commercial horizon. It is time to design out bureaucratic burden and the waste routes of the past. Now is the time to build the infrastructure of our future and complete that oft-mentioned circular economy.

Peter Taylor OBE is Secretary General of the Tyre Recovery Association.