Kuwait revealed plans on Sunday to convert a massive “tire graveyard” into a new residential city.
Tires were dumped in a 2-square-kilometer (0.7-square-mile) dump in the north of the oil-rich Gulf country, totaling more than 40 million by the end.
Between 2012 and 2020, seventeen years of tire dumping and three huge fires caused environmental concerns, causing the authorities to permanently close it down.
“We have progressed from a tough stage that was marked by significant environmental risk,” Oil Minister Mohammed Al-Fares remarked at the now-empty landfill, which is located five kilometers outside of Al-Jahra province.
“Today, the region is clean, and all tires have been removed, allowing the Saad Al-Abdullah city project to begin.” Trucks loaded with tires have made over 44,000 trips from the landfill to the Al-Salmi district, near Kuwait’s industrial area, where they will be temporarily stored, according to Fares. The tires will be cut or repurposed for local use or export, he said, with storage meeting “international requirements… in case of fire.”
Kuwait wants to recycle all tires and prevent the need for a new landfill, according to Sheikh Abdullah Al-Sabah, director-general of the Environment Public Authority.
“There is already a factory today that repurposes them, and we hope to find another manufacturer to contribute to help end the tires issue,” he said.
EPSCO Global General Contracting’s Alaa Hassan explained that her company separates raw materials from tires, including parts required to pave roads and walkways. EPSCO, in collaboration with other firms, has the capacity to cut or reuse around two million tires per year, according to her.
