ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Battle over Used Tyre Imports

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 2 2002 (IPS) - Brazil, which has always rejected environmental conditions placed on international trade, claiming they are used for protectionist ends, is suffering the effects of its own arguments because has been unable to prevent imports of reconditioned used tyres.

A year and a half ago, the Brazilian government banned the import of used tyres re-covered with rubber in a bid to curb the pollution caused by the 100 million used tyres that are estimated to have been dumped throughout the country and which contribute to the dengue epidemics that have hit Brazil regularly since 1986.

Brazil suffered its first defeat on the matter when an arbitration tribunal of Mercosur (Southern Common Market), in response to a petition from Uruguay, ruled against the used tyre ban, saying it violated the principles of the trade bloc, in which both countries are members, along with Argentina and Paraguay.

Brasilia complied with the ruling in mid-March, when the 60-day period set by the tribunal ended, and decided to extend the removal of the ban to the rest of Mercosur, because Paraguay had also complained about the losses caused by the Brazilian trade barrier.

But concern is spreading as a result of pressure from the European Union (EU), whose exports of reconditioned tyres involve much greater volumes. EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy mentioned the re-opening of the Brazilian market to this product during his recent visit to Brasilia.

The European bloc could file a complaint with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) if Brazil maintains the “discriminatory treatment” of rejecting the EU’s retreaded tyres after accepting those from other Mercosur countries, said the adviser to the EU delegation in Brasilia, Stéfano Gatto.

Brazil has prohibited the import of used goods since 1991, including tyres, which are subject to increasingly tighter restrictions in recent years due to pressure from environmental authorities and organisations.

The reconditioned tyres were equated with used tyres, and thus banned, in September 2000.

But several companies won provisional court rulings that allowed them to import them, establishing the distinction between reconditioned tyres and used tyres, and the validity of the import licenses they held, which pre-dated the ban.

As a result, Brazil continued acquiring retreaded tyres from abroad, but limited the total to around 900,000 units annually in the last two years, a sum that could rise rapidly if the trade barriers fall.

But the argument that these purchases pose a serious threat to the environment, human health and consumer rights led the Brazilian government last September to establish, by decree, a fine of 170 dollars for every imported retreaded tyre.

These tyres have a shorter lifespan than do new tyres, according to the Environment Ministry. This means there is a more rapid accumulation of disposed material that is not biodegradable and tends to collect water. Mosquitoes, including the Aedes aegypti, transmitter of the dengue virus, use the tyre dumps to reproduce.

“It is disguised garbage that Brazil should not be importing. Europe wants to transfer the environmental costs of used tyres to developing countries,” the toxic waste campaign coordinator for Greenpeace International in Brazil, Karen Suassuna, told IPS, in support of the authorities.

But Francisco Simeao, president of the Brazilian Association of Reconditioned Pneumatics (ABIP), responded that “it is pure lies, product of the government submitting to pressure from the multinational corporations” Firestone, Goodyear and Pirelli, which produce and import new tyres.

Furthermore, because there are no solid legal or ecological bases for the argument, the government is unable to eliminate the imports, and has suffered defeats in the legal actions taken by ABIP, said Simeao.

The environmental problem is created by useless tyres, 95 percent of which are produced by the multinationals, argued the businessman.

He maintained that the local reconditioning and retread companies are being blamed for problems they did not create, as they are responsible for only a minimal portion of the waste and they comply with recycling requirements.

A rule established by Brazil’s environmental authorities, in effect since Jan 1, requires the tyre industry and importers this year to eliminate a quarter of the tyres consumed annually in this country, estimated at 30 million.

In 2003, the portion will increase to half of the tyres discarded, and in 2004, all discarded tyres must be eliminated through recycling. Beginning in 2005, the requirement will be 125 percent, thus beginning a gradual reduction in the number of units discarded at open-air dumpsites.

The initiative has motivated numerous tyre-recycling projects, as the material can be used as a source of energy, as highway paving material, and in construction.

But Simeao accuses “the multinational industry” of so far failing to collect “even one useless tyre for recycling,” while his own company, BS Colway, based in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba, has already complied with its target “for the next five years.”

BS Colway acquires discarded tyres through a programme known as “Curitiba Rolling Clean”, and since June 2001 has sent more than a million of them for the production of industrial petroleum and gas at the government-owned Petrobrás company.

Shredded tyres are added to the fuels, increasing their productivity 11.28 percent, reports Petrobrás.