Britain’s tyre ‘recycling’ scandal: A burning shame
Callum Parkinson, Preston
Each year in the UK around 50 million car tyres need recycling. But instead of investing in expensive shredding machinery, many profit-hungry ‘recycling’ businesses choose to export their tyres to India.
It was recently revealed that 70 percent of these tyres end up in illegal rural facilities where they’re cooked in makeshift furnaces at temperatures of 500⁰C for the extraction of steel, oil, and a chemical called ‘carbon black’.
This process, known as pyrolysis, produces harmful gases and chemicals which leave plant workers with respiratory, cardiovascular, and neurological diseases. Near a site just outside of Mumbai, villagers complain of persistent coughs and eye problems.
One of them told the BBC: “we want these companies moved from our village, otherwise we will not be able to breathe freely”.
The environmental consequences can also be seen from aerial drone footage: soot blackening the fields, dying vegetation, and polluted waterways.
All of this is well known within the industry in Britain. And the government knows that the UK is one of the worst offenders for exporting waste tyres to these dodgy processing sites. But everyone turns a blind eye. Profits are profits, after all!
From Britain to India, only getting rid of these polluting profiteers can save our planet.
COP30: Killing the planet to discuss saving the planet
Lily Moss, Preston
A 13-kilometer stretch of rainforest is being cleared to construct a four-lane highway in Belém, Brazil, ahead of the COP30 Climate Summit this November.
The highway has been planned since 2012, but dismissed on environmental grounds time and time again.
But now state officials are deeming it “sustainable,” as it will help reduce traffic congestion as Belém prepares to welcome over 50,000 attendees this autumn, including world ‘leaders’.
Belém is undergoing 30 modernisation projects, with the highway being just one. Brazil’s federal government is investing over £63 million to double the city’s airport capacity from seven to 14 million passengers.
These projects are just a small part of a long history of ruling-class initiatives in Brazil that have failed to benefit the working class. But with the social and environmental crisis getting worse, public tolerance for this blatant destruction is wearing thin.
The state’s infrastructure secretary claims this will “leave a legacy for the population.” But if the climate catastrophe continues, there will be no one left to inherit this so-called “legacy”.
Claudio Verequete used to earn a living harvesting berries from trees that have since been demolished. “Everything was destroyed,” he told the BBC. “We no longer have that income to support our family.” Verequete fears that further deforestation and displacement will follow.
“Our fear is that one day someone will come here and say: ‘Here’s some money. We need this area to build a gas station or a warehouse.’ And then we’ll have to leave.”
Likewise, Dalci Cardoso da Silva, a shoe vendor, said that when he was young, Belém was “beautiful, well-kept, well cared for,” but now it has been “abandoned” with “little interest from the ruling class.”
This highway is a reminder that the ruling class will always prioritise profit over the environment and local communities. Once again, workers will be left to bear the brunt of the consequences for this destruction.
Summits like COP are a complete joke. The last few have been held in petrostates like Azerbaijan and the UEA, and now they’re being hosted by the world’s leaders in deforestation!
We don’t need the rich and powerful to tell us how to solve the climate crisis. We know what needs to be done, and our plans don’t involve them!
Recipes to save earth
Max, London
I recently went to the Somerset House exhibition SOIL: The World at Our Feet, recommended in issue 23 of The Communist.
I found the exploration of ecology, climate science, and our symbiotic relationship with nature fascinating.
But what grabbed me the most was the interactive display at the end – presumably aimed at children – where visitors were encouraged to write down their “recipes to save earth”.
I’ll let readers draw their own conclusions…
My Recipe to save earth:
Kill Donald Trump and invent something to create infinite food – by Johnny age 9
Eat the rich
Luigi Mangione
Abolish capitalism and borders
Stop putting profit over everything
No more money for bombs and billionaires, the planet doesn’t doesn’t need them
Down with Elon
POTUS 47 as fertiliser
Communism! <3
An economic system run by working class people. We can only avoid extinction with socialism
