Extra raccolta EcopneusEcopneus is the non-profit company responsible for the management of the majority of End-of-Life Tyres in Italy. It has announced an extra target collection: by the month of October, they will collect 3,000 tonnes of End-of-Life Tyres beyond their legal target to contribute to reduce some system criticalities that have caused tyre dealers great distress. This intervention is to be added to the daily ELT collection activities at the over 26,000 generation points present all over the national territory.

The extraordinary intervention was made possible thanks to the efficient operative management of Ecopneus during 2018, which has allowed to use over 1 million Euros for this extra target collection.

The collection will be focused on those areas where the main criticalities have been highlighted. This is the case, for example, of some Regions where ELT collection is not carried out regularly by all authorised subjects and during the course of the whole year. This has caused great delays in the “ordinary” collection. This is the case, for example, of the so-called “Triveneto” (comprising the Regions of Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige, and Friuli Venezia Giulia), and of the regions of Lazio and Campania. The extraordinary collection will involve also large tyres (for agricultural vehicles or earth-moving machinery). This is due to the fact that this type of tyres is normally not subject to periodic collection from the part of the other authorised companies.

The extra-target collection intervention is aimed at alleviating system criticalities and highlighting the fact that Ecopneus and its Shareholders operate exclusively for environmental protection goals and without any profit, supporting the Producer’s Extended Responsibility Model. The approach aimed to the constant efficiency and the minimisation of the cost for the citizen of Ecopneus and its Business Partners has made possible the saving of the financial resources used for this intervention.

EXTRA TARGET AND ILLEGAL TYRE SALES

The majority of the criticalities pointed out by the operators are due to illegal tyre sales. It is estimated that about 20/30 thousand tonnes of tyres are the result of illegal transactions every year. This alters the collection target count. Moreover, they are not associated to the regular payment of the eco fees necessary for the coverage of collection and recovery costs.

These estimates translate this situation into a loss of eco fees equal to 12 million Euros every year. This is accompanied by VAT evasion – estimated at about 80 million Euros. One must then add even the cost of eventual interventions for cleaning up the territory from potential illegal dumping. These large quantities end up saturating tyre dealers’ warehouses, thus generating a potential environmental risk in case of fire.

WHO IS ECOPNEUS?

Last year Ecopneus handled 241,484 tonnes of End-of-Life Tyres collected in over 26,000 generation points spread all over the Italian territory, from Lampedusa to Livigno. This satisfied over 65,000 tyre collection requests. Moreover, thanks to the use of recycled rubber obtained from ELTs in the Ecopneus chain, the emission of 364 thousand tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere was avoided (this is equivalent to 220thousand automobile driving 10,000 km in a year). 1.6 million m3 of water, equal to the daily consumption of 6.8 million people, was also saved.