Tauranga man Owen Douglas wants the city council to lobby the Government to take action over old car tyres, which are a growing environmental problem.

The number of discarded car and truck tyres is growing at a rate of 12,000-20,000 car tyre equivalents per day or about five to eight million every year.

'And there is no way of dealing with them other than tossing them into holes in the ground,” Owen told Tauranga City Council's Environment Committee this week.

Speaking in the public forum, Owen says tyres can be chewed up by machinery and recycled into low emission high calorific value fuel for the cement industry, but the plant will cost about $7m.

It could process up to 16,000 car tyre equivalents per day at a cost of about $10 per car tyre.

'The only way you are going to get that money is by a stewardship programme,” says Owen. When the tyres come in put $10 put on the cost, which is held by the Government, and that is paid to get rid of them.

'Unless money is attached to the tyre there's not enough money to process it and get rid of it.”

He wants the council to lobby the Government on his behalf because his letters to the Prime Minister, Environment Minister and Primary Industries Minister are having no effect.

Meanwhile the tyres are stacking up, says Owen. There are already 50-100 million ‘orphan tyres' in the landscape. Orphan tyres are tyres that have been dumped with no way of tracing their origin.