「タイヤの墓場」を住宅地に、クウェートの挑戦

【クウェート市ＡＦＰ＝時事】クウェートで、２平方キロにわたって広がる「タイヤの墓場」を新興住宅地に変身させる計画が進んでいる。（写真は資料写真）
　埋め立て地である「タイヤの墓場」には、１７年間にわたって４０００万本以上のタイヤが捨てられてきた。同地では２０１２年から２０２０年にかけて大規模な火災が３回発生し、環境への影響も懸念されていた。
　タイヤの墓場から撤去したタイヤは、一時的にクウェートの産業地区に近いサルミで保管される。トラックによるタイヤの運搬回数は、ここ数か月間で４万４０００回以上に上った。
　現地での利用や輸出のため、タイヤは切断あるいは転用される。タイヤから取り出した資材を道路や歩道の舗装材として使うこともある。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】

〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/09/08-10:30）

Kuwait on Sunday announced plans to transform what was once a mammoth tyre graveyard to 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, adding that storage would meet international standards... in case of fire.
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 manufacturer to contribute to help end the tyres issue, he told AFP.
Alaa Hassan, head of EPSCO Global General Contracting, told AFP her firm extracts raw materials from tyres, including elements used to pave roads and sidewalks.
She said EPSCO has the capacity to cut or repurpose approximately two millions tyres a year, in cooperation with other factories.