Kuwait aims to transform ‘tyre graveyard’ into new city

AFP | Kuwait City

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Kuwait on Sunday announced plans to transform what was once a mammoth “tyre graveyard” into a new residential city. The 2-square-kilometre (0.7-square-mile) dump in the north of the oil-rich Gulf country was where tyres went to die -- a total of more than 40 million at the end.

Seventeen years of tyre dumping and three massive fires between 2012 and 2020 sparked environmental concerns, prompting the authorities to shut it down for good. “We have moved from a difficult stage that was characterised by great environmental risk,” Oil Minister Mohammed al-Fares said at the now empty landfill some five kilometres (three miles) from Al-Jahra province. “Today the area is clean and all tyres have been removed to begin the launch of the project of Saad Al-Abdullah city.”

In past months, trucks loaded with tyres had made more than 44,000 trips from the landfill to Al-Salmi region, near Kuwait’s industrial area, where Fares said they will be temporarily stored.

He said the tyres will be cut or repurposed for local use or for export. According to Sheikh Abdullah Al-Sabah, director-general of the Environment Public Authority, Kuwait plans to recycle all the tyres and avoid the need for another landfill. “There is already a factory today that repurposes them, and we hope to find other manufacturers to contribute to help end the tyres issue,” he told.