Acting Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Collins Chabane, has withdrawn the approval for the Integrated Industry Waste Tyre Management Plan (IIWTMP) of the Recycling and Economic Development Initiative of South Africa (Redisa) with immediate effect. In a statement Chabane said the withdrawal would afford the department an opportunity to attend to procedural requirements stipulated in the Waste Tyre Regulations (WTR). The Department of Environmental Affairs promulgated the WTR that took effect on June 20 in 2009 and the Redisa plan was gazetted by minister Edna Molewa in November last year. In terms of the plan a levy of R2.30 per kilogram would be charged on new tyres manufactured or imported into the country from February 1 this year. The money would be used for the collection and recycling of waste tyres in the country as well as for training and education around the recycling of tyres. Over 200 000 tonnes of tyres become waste tyres in South Africa every year with about 11 million dumped or burnt illegally, according to the department of environmental affairs Various organisations, including the South African Tyre Recycling Programme (SATRP), raised concerns over the plan last week saying they had not been given enough opportunity to comment. According to Albi Modise, spokesman for the Department of Water and Environment Affairs, the withdrawal will now allow time for the general public to engage with the department around any concerns or issues and also to provide input into the Redisa plan. According to Gareth Morgan, Democratic Alliance spokesman on Water and Environmental Affairs, Redisa in its current format is doomed to be a failure. “The minister effectively gave Redisa a monopoly over tyre recycling in South Africa, as manufactures, dealers and importers would be forced to become subscribers to the plan as long as it was the only plan approved by the Minister,” he said. Morgan also claimed that the government had failed to conduct a regulatory impact assessment to determine what the R2.30 per kg tyre levy would cost the industry and what the related impacts on the industry would be.
