In a one-of-its kind achievement in the region, Qatar's full stock of damaged and discarded tyres was completely disposed of, the Ministry of Municipality's Waste management and Recycling Department at the Public Services Sector announced Sunday.
The announcement came at a press conference at the ministry in the presence of Hamad Jassim al-Bahr, the director of the Waste management and Recycling Department, and a number of owners and representatives of the factories concerned.
The disposal of the millions of damaged and discarded tyres was a strategic target of the Ministry of Municipality.
A comprehensive plan was adopted to find ideal recycling solutions at all the related sites in co-operation with the private sector.
The operation started in April 2020 at Umm Al-Afai Landfill in co-operation with the private sector after a technical tender was won by three companies, which worked on shredding as much as 56,000 tonnes of old tyres and exporting the material outside the country.
In addition, 13,000 tonnes of waste were cleared and sites cleaned in preparation for using it for upcoming key projects.
At Rawdat Rashid landfill, which was allocated to receive old tyres at a rate of 2,000 tonnes a month, the process of shredding them was progressing slowly and until 2021, not more than 20% of the tyres received annually were disposed of due to the limited numbers of companies working at the site.
Subsequently, the ministry increased the number of shredding workshops from just four in 2020 to 23 this year.
In the interim, an agreement was signed in June 2022 with recycling factories and tyre shredding workshops, offering a financial support of QR250 for every tonne of tyres recycled.
Such measures helped in raising the recycling rate by 600% in the second half of 2022.
By the end of January this year, around 120,000 tonnes of old tyres at Rawdat Rashid were disposed of and recycled safely.
The damaged and discarded tyres received at the new site at Mesaieed Area are to be recycled on a daily basis, it was mentioned.
