00:02A growing problem sits hidden beside a remote North Queensland road.
00:07Anti-dumping advocates say illegal tyre dumping is on the rise.
00:11You can see a whole lot of burnt stuff.
00:13So there's tyres that have been burnt and buried under some of this.
00:17Dave Dudley estimates there are 1,000 tyres at this dump site
00:20and the clean up could cost $100,000.
00:24All the residue that seeps into the ground
00:26or runs down this creek in the wet season and into the river system,
00:31it's all bad news, it's all toxic.
00:34He reported the site, but the Environment Department couldn't find who was responsible.
00:39It'll sit here until hell freezes over, unless it's cleaned up.
00:44In Australia, around half a million tonnes of tyres reach their use-by date annually.
00:49That's the equivalent of around 60 million passenger car tyres.
00:53But only around a quarter of those are properly recycled.
00:57The opportunity for someone to collect a tyre, pocket the money and then dump them,
01:04is really easy in Australia and we've got to make it stop.
01:07One industry group which encourages responsible solutions wants stronger regulations.
01:12In New Zealand, they have a mandatory stewardship scheme
01:16and one local government in council in the first year of the regulated scheme
01:21had a decrease by 47% of illegally dumped tyres.
01:26Engineers are now exploring how tyres can be used to make steel.
01:30Tyres do contain fundamentally important elements like carbon and of course hydrogen.
01:37all of these are important elements.
01:40Waste is really not a waste, it's a resource.
01:43And if it's a resource, you have to know how to harness that resource.
01:47Advocates say it's a social problem as much as an environmental.
01:51I get angry when I say this because there's no need for it, you know.
01:54Baz Ruddick.
02:01ZEX ROCK
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