The Australian Government has stopped the unlawful export of 10 shipping containers of illegal tyre waste from Sydney to Malaysia.
The Australian Border Force (ABF) detected the 280-tonne shipment, the equivalent of 175 passenger cars, during ongoing border monitoring.
Compliance and enforcement officers from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) inspected the contents of the 10 containers and found a mixture of non-compliant baled waste tyres and bags of shredded waste tyre pieces in contravention of the Recycling and Waste Reduction (RAWR) Act 2020 and the Recycling and Waste Reduction (Export-Waste Tyres) Rules 2021.
Following the inspection, the Melbourne based tyre-exporter was issued with a compulsory direction to deal with non-compliance and was required to collect the containers from the facility at his own cost.
The exporter is liable to pay container detention, inspection and transport costs - in this case believed to exceed $30,000 - and may be responsible for additional costs to process the tyres to the legal standard.
Anyone found to be illegally exporting tyres can face up to 5 years' imprisonment and fines of up to $198,000 for an individual or $990,000 for a company.
Since the implementation of the RAWR Act Tyre Rules, DCCEEW has worked closely with the ABF to intercept 61 shipping containers of non-compliant waste tyres over 14 separate export consignments by licence and non-licence holders.
This equates to stopping around 1,700 tonnes of waste tyres from leaving Australia unlawfully. This waste may have been sent overseas and caused harm to human health and the environment.
Quotes for attribution to a departmental spokesperson
"Exporters who send their illegal waste overseas seek to take advantage of markets that don't apply the same recycling standards as Australia and are driven by higher profits at the expense of the environment.
"Tyre exporters need to be vigilant and source end of life tyres that are processed correctly and always ensure they comply with licence conditions and Australia's waste export legislation.
"Through the work of our compliance team and our collaboration with the ABF we are catching illegal waste exporters in the act.
"You can be part of efforts to combat waste crime.
"The public can report a breach of national environment law through the department's webpage: Report a Breach."
