Molewa gazettes Redisa

Ms Molewa's withdrawal of the Recycling and Economic Development Initiative of South Africa (Redisa) plan in February came days before Redisa and the South African Tyre Recycling Process Company (SATRP) were to go head to head in court over the plan.

Ms Molewa gazetted the Redisa plan on Tuesday (17 April 2012), and the public had 30 days to comment, her spokesman Albi Modise said yesterday.

The Redisa plan proposes a levy, at sale or factory gate, of R2,30/kg; the SATRP plan's proposal is a levy of R1,98/kg. SA produced close to 200000 tons of waste pneumatic tyres each year, and only 5% of these were recycled, Ms Molewa said.

It is unlikely SA will get a tyre recycling plan before mid-year.

The SATRP welcomed Tuesday's gazetting. It was because the Redisa plan had not been properly gazetted for comment before Ms Molewa launched it that the SATRP took legal action.

The SATRP had already spent more than a decade and about R8m drawing up a plan, in consultation with environment ministers.

This plan was rejected, but a new SATRP plan was submitted this year, with amendments in response to public comment, after being gazetted for comment in 2010-11, said SATRP CEO Etienne Human.

"It's good that the plans have been put out for public comment," he said.

The SATRP was waiting for the Department of Environmental Affairs to give feedback on its revised plan, and had been told this would happen by the end of the month.

Redisa CEO Hermann Erdmann said the Redisa plan had also been amended, but not substantially.

Danish tyre recycling company Genan, the world's largest tyre recycler, in a letter to Department of Environmental Affairs pollution and waste management chief director Nolwazi Cobbinah that is in Business Day's possession, called the Redisa plan "state of the art" because it was "efficient, transparent and environmentally beneficial".

Source: Business Day