To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many tyres were (a) purchased, (b) reused and (c) disposed of by (i) landfill, (ii) incineration, (iii) illegal fly tipping and (iv) other means in each year since 1992. [99271]

The Used Tyre Working Group, which comprises representatives from the tyre industry and officials from the Department of Trade and Industry and the Environment Agency, has compiled statistics on

	Replacement tyre sales		Tyres on new vehicles		Total
	Units (m)	Tonnes (000s)	Units (m)	Tonnes (000s)	Units (m)	Tonnes (000s)
1995	27.9	382	11.2	94	39.1	476
1996	27.2	359	11.6	96	38.8	456
1997	26.6	369	12.4	100	39	468
1998	27.8	370	12.9	106	40.7	476
19991	26.3	275	12.7	103	38.9	378
2000	25	260	12.8	105	37.8	365
2001	26.9	284	14.1	114	41.0	398
1From 1999 onwards, the method of calculating replacement tyre sales tonnage from unit information changed to better reflect the spread of commercial vehicle tyre sizes and weights.

Tonnes (000s)1
	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
Reused2	72	87	93	110	92	99	94
Retreaded	124	116	110	86	66	56	49
Recycled	41	41	34	49	83	75	107
Energy recovery3	80	102	117	84	70	54	40
Total recovery	317	346	354	328	311	283	290
Other (inc. landfill)4	166	138	136	139	123	167	191
Used tyre arisings5	483	484	490	468	427	450	481
1Units not separately identified, since recovery generally reported in tonnage terms.
2Category includes part-worn tyres, tyres used for silage clamps and landfill engineering purposes and exports of used tyres.
3Includes the former Elm Energy/Sita Tyre Recycling tyres to energy plant which closed in 2000.
4The figure for landfill, as reported in the table, is effectively the balance between used tyre arisings and used tyre recovery. As well as covering the disposal of both whole and shredded tyres to landfill, it also includes those tyres which are disposed of to landfill as automotive shredder residue.
5From 1999, total used tyre arisings have been based on the number of replacement tyre sales, numbers of vehicles scrapped and imports of used tyres as well as a proportion of tyres re-entering the waste stream after temporary re-use.

The level of tyre fly-tipping is not separately identified. However, the Environment Agency responded to over 1,300 incidents involving tyres in 2002. The actual total is likely to be substantially higher since many incidents are reported directly to local authorities and do not feature in Environment Agency statistics.Government, through the Department of Trade and Industry, are shortly to issue a follow-up paper to its 2002 consultation on a possible statutory producer responsibility mechanism for used tyres. This follow-up paper invites views on the introduction of statutory reporting requirements through both the new tyre supply and used tyre disposal chains with the aim of improving the information base, promoting responsible tyre recovery and disposal practices while at the same time making it increasingly difficult for those fly-tipping tyres. The paper will also seek views on the introduction of a single point for the reporting of tyre fly-tipping incidents.

Municipal waste 2000–01
Government Region	Municipal waste (000 tonnes)	Landfill disposal (percentage)	Incineration (percentage)	Other methods (percentage)
East Midlands	2,290	78	7	15
East of England	2,918	82	2	16
London	4,463	71	21	8
North East	1,452	75	19	6
North West	4,155	90	1	9
South East	4,344	81	0	19
South West	2,678	82	0	18
Wales	1,642	93	0	7