China has moved to tackle the rising challenge of used tyres with the Government drafting new regulations to encourage recycling.

China Plans to Encourage Tyre Recycling

With some 340 million cars on its roads by the end of the first half of 2019, according to the Chinese transport ministry data, handling used tyres has become a growing challenge.

According to the China Tyre Recycling Association, (CTRA) China has an accumulated a total of more than 300 million used and unrecycled tyres, rising by as much as 13 million a year.

China will establish new specialist firms to re-use and recycle its spent rubber tyres as it tries to tackle a mounting waste problem, the industry ministry said in new draft guidelines.

The rules, part of China's efforts to cut pollution and ensure its resources are "comprehensively utilised", were published by the ministry recently and have been opened to the public for consultation.

China will aim to scale up its tyre recycling business, improve recycling technologies like thermal cracking, and increase tyre retreading rates. It will also encourage the recycling of tyres into rubber powder, the guidelines said.

Some initiatives to recycle have been launched, including one to turn spent tyres into rubberised asphalt on roads. Regulators are also considering measures to encourage their use as fuel for cement kilns.

The CTRA said that if China can recycle the 13 million tonnes of waste tyres produced every year, an industrial chain worth more than 100 billion yuan ($14.2 billion) could be created.