A recent Tyre Amnesty event undertaken jointly between Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend County Borough Councils has been hailed a huge success.
The Tyre Amnesty was made possible by funding through the Welsh Assembly Government’s Tidy Towns Grant Scheme, a Local Environmental Quality Initiative.
This joint venture is the second joint cross-boundary initiative of its kind in Wales, the first being carried out by NPTCBC in partnership with City & County of Swansea last March and has resulted in over 1,160 tyres being recovered. All recovered tyres are to be sent for recycling. The aim of the event was to focus joint efforts in assisting residents to dispose of their unwanted tyres.
The Leader of Neath Port Talbot Council, Cllr. Ali Thomas, said “The overall objective of the Tyre Amnesty was to go some way in eliminating the potential for future occurrences of fly tipped tyres that blight our everyday lives”.
He added “the Tidy Towns Grant Scheme has provided the Authority with the opportunity to provide a much needed community resource which otherwise would not have been possible. Fly-tipped tyres are a huge problem across Wales and this was an excellent initiative by both Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend Councils to combat this. At present, there are around 55,000 incidents of fly-tipping in Wales every year, with the resultant annual clean-up cost to the taxpayer of around £3million”.
The success of the event can be attributed in no small way to the excellent input from the local Keep Wales Tidy Officer, Alan Powis and also EWC Waste & Recycling Solutions staff at the Household Waste & Recycling Centres at Briton Ferry and Cymmer.
Alan Shields, Tidy Towns Project Manager, Neath Port Talbot Council said “We are once again very grateful for the fantastic help from Mr Powis and Andrew Gardener and his staff at ECW without which, the event would not have been the great success that it was”.
For more information on the efforts being carried out to tackle fly-tipping, visit: www.flytippingactionwales.org
