By A Saleh
KUWAIT: Kuwait marked a milestone in its tire dump saga yesterday with the removal of tons of old tires from a dump in Arhia, near Mutlaa now complete. Speaking at an event celebrating the end of the removal, Mohammad Al-Fares, Minister of Oil, Minister of Higher Education and Minister of Environment Public Authority, said that the removal program took three years and relieved the residential district of South Saad Al-Abdullah of serious health and environmental hazards.
In 2019, the director general of the Kuwait Environmental Public Authority said there were around 20 million to 40 million tires. Most of these have now been moved to Al-Salmi tire dump. It is one of the largest tire graveyards in the world and is visible from space. But the move has done little to alleviate the longer term environmental problem for Kuwait.
There have been several massive fires at the tire graveyard. In October 2020, an estimated 1 million tires caught fire in a blaze that took days to control. In 2012, an estimated five million tires burned for days in a massive blaze that released plumes of black smoke adding carbon monoxide and sulfur oxide to foul Kuwait's already variable air quality. An average car tire produces two gallons of oil when burned, according to EPA estimates. This means that the 2012 fire, when the tires were located in Sulaibiya, likely released as much as 10 million gallons of toxic chemicals into the lands around the tire dump, not to mention the air pollutants.
Kuwait ranked last in environmental security in the 'Safe Cities Index 2021' report, released recently by The Economist Intelligence Unit. Kuwait managed a score of only 22 out of 100 in environmental security, and is the only city in the list with a 'Low' score in this category, designated for cities with scores between zero and 25. The report is based on the fourth iteration of the index, which ranks 60 cities across 76 indicators covering digital, health, infrastructure, personal and environmental security. The report focus on matters of environmental concern for Kuwait City but speaks to the much larger issue of Kuwait's environmental policy and future.
Al-Fares said the tires are being handled according to international standards.
There are also plans to recycle or shred some of these for local consumption and export. Last March, the General Administration of Customs approved a request for a company to export five million used tires at the Arhia site within nine months. It also initiated the establishment of five factories to cut, recycle and export these tires.
"An area of two million square meters has been allocated for the establishment of tire recycling plants in Salmi," Hassan Kamal, a Kuwaiti Municipal Council member, told Anadolu Agency. "The designated site will include about 52 plants to recycle tires, paper, and plastic." However, Hammoud Al-Anzi, head of the Jahra Committee in the Municipal Council, told Anadolu Agency that the efforts made so far do not match "the challenge of the huge number of tires."
He called on the government to involve community volunteers to dispose of the tires, and invite major transport companies and heavy equipment companies to contribute within the framework of social responsibility to accelerate the pace of tires' disposal and reduce the tons of dumped tires piled neatly in Kuwait's desert.