An investigation by BBC has found that millions of tyres being exported to India from the United Kingdom are being burnt in furnaces in small industrial plants located in rural areas. This causes the release of dangerous gases and chemicals into the environment, triggering a massive health crisis.

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The report by BBC File on 4 Investigates states that the UK ends up with nearly 50 million waste tyres (700,000 tonnes) every year. Almost half of these tyres are bought by entities in the Indian black market, and this is something everyone in the industry is aware of, as per the report.

In the UK, every time a driver gets their tyre changed, they are charged a recycling fee of about £3-6 ($3.8 or Rs 332). This means that the tyres should be sent for recycling, either in the country or outside. However, the recycling process is not being honestly followed in India, where these tyres end up in furnaces.

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Elliot Mason, who has been recycling tyres into tiny rubber crumbs since 1996, says that this is not a secret within the industry. "I don't imagine there's anybody in the industry that doesn't know it's happening," he told BBC.

How are the tyres sent to India?

Before being exported to India, the tyres are compressed to make cubes called "bales". Mason says that the official word is that these bales will be "shredded and granulated in a factory very similar to ours." But, according to the  Tyre Recovery Association (TRA), around 70 per cent of tyres that reach India from the UK and other countries are cooked in furnaces with temperatures of about 500C.

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Pyrolysis plants in India

The process is known as pyrolysis where the tyres are subjected to high heat in the absence of oxygen to extract steel, small amounts of oil and carbon black that is used in several industries.

BBC reported that the pyrolysis plants are like homemade pressure cookers and release gases and chemicals that are dangerous to human health and the environment.

The investigation team joined hands with SourceMaterial, a non-profit journalism group, and got someone to place trackers in the tyre shipments sent to India. They noted that the shipment reached an Indian port after eight weeks, from where they travelled 1,287 kilometres on the road to reach a small village.

Citing drone footage, BBC reported that the tyres were at a place where they were later thrown into furnaces. A person told them that processing imported tyres this way was legal and not dangerous. The publication quoted an Indian environmental lawyer as saying that there are 2,000 pyrolysis plants in the country, and half of them are unlicensed.

Exposure to the chemicals released by these pyrolysis plants can cause heart, neurological and respiratory disorders, besides certain types of cancers, scientists from Imperial College London told BBC.

The Indian government has yet to comment on the matter.