Kuwait's infamous tyre graveyard given environmental makeover

The recycling process for 42 million tyres has begun

In a huge expanse of sand near a residential neighbourhood in Kuwait, 42 million tyres are set to be turned into floor tiles and other useful products.

The old dumping site was an eyesore, as black rubber rings blighted the view.

Not only unpleasant to look at, the smoke and noxious fumes from continual blazes were also making life difficult for local residents.

But this month Kuwait, which wants to build 25,000 new houses on the site, finished moving all of the tyres to a new location at Al Salmi, near the Saudi border, where recycling efforts have begun.

At a plant run by the EPSCO Global General Trading recycling company, employees sort and shred scrap tyres, before pressing the particles into rubbery coloured flooring tiles.

"The factory is helping society by cleaning up the dumped old tyres and turning them into consumer products," said EPSCO partner and CEO Alaa Hassan. They also export products to neighbouring Gulf countries and Asia.

A worker removes a newly moulded rubber mat manufactured from recycled tyres at the EPSCO Global General Trading recycling company in Al Salmi, Kuwait. Reuters

The EPSCO plant, which began operations in January 2021, can recycle up to three million tyres a year, the company said.

Scrap tyres are a major environmental problem worldwide due to their bulk and the chemicals they release.

The government hopes Al Salmi will become a tyre recycling hub, with more factories planned.

The Al Khair Group used 500-plus trucks a day to transport more than half of the tyres to the new site. It is planning to open a factory to burn the tyres through a process called pyrolysis, its CEO Hammoud al-Marri said.

Pyrolysis produces a type of oil that can be sold for use in industrial furnaces, such as cement factories, and an ash known as carbon black.

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  A tyre graveyard at Sulaibiya, five kilometres south of Al Jahra near Kuwait City, Kuwait. Discarded tyres stored as landfill threaten the environment and human health because they take a long time to degrade and contain dangerous components.

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  The Kuwaiti government is trying to find a solution to the tyre problem at Sulaibiya, where tyres have been accumulating for about 20 years.

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  An aerial view of the tyre graveyard near Kuwait City.

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  Earth-moving equipment is used to manage the huge volume of old tyres at the site.

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  Despite the site being ordered and well managed, the discarded tyres are still an environmental risk.

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  Some of the equipment used to manage the landfill site.

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  The vast site is still being added to.

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  An aerial view of Sulaibiya tyre graveyard near Kuwait City.

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  A general view of disposed tyres as the landfill threatens the environment and human health due to containing dangerous components and tyre durability at Sulaibiya tyre graveyard located 5 kilometers south of Al Jahra town near Kuwait City, Kuwait. Kuwaiti government seeks solution to get rid of disposed tyres which have been accumulated for about 20 years.

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  Sulaibiya tyre graveyard contains millions of discarded tyres, posing a serious health and environmental challenge to the Kuwaiti authorities.