Circular Economy means a systems solution framework that tackles global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution. It is based on three principles, driven by design: eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials (at their highest value), and regenerate nature. It is underpinned by a transition to renewable energy and materials. Transitioning to a circular economy entails decoupling economic activity from the consumption of finite resources. This represents a systemic shift that builds long-term resilience, generates business and economic opportunities, and provides environmental and societal benefits.

 

Collector means an individual, business or organization that collects and/or transports end-of-life tires for recycling, reuse, or disposal.

​

Consumer means the final purchaser of a tire. As the owner, a Consumer shares responsibility for the appropriate disposal of a tire when it reaches its end of life.

​

Crumb rubber A highly-refined rubber product, typically less than 1mm in diameter, made from recycled tires.

 

Direct incineration of tires means the incineration of tires for disposal and without effective energy recovery.

​

End-of-life tire means a tire that is deemed no longer capable of performing the function for which it was originally made.

 

End-of-life tire (EOL tire) means a tire that is deemed no longer capable of performing the function for which it was originally made.

 

Environment Protection and Heritage Council (EPHC), See Standing Council on Environment and Water Environmentally sound use means the use of whole, part or recovered components of end-of-life tires for applications that minimize or prevent environmental, health and safety damage or harm.

 

Environmentally sound use means the use of whole, part or recovered components of end-of-life for applications that minimize or prevent environmental, health and safety damage or harm.

 

Equivalent Passenger Unit (EPU) means a standardized measure for the quantity of tires. One EPU contains as much rubber and other materials as a ‘typical’ passenger tire.

​

Fleet operator is an entity that owns or operates a fleet of vehicles, including private and Australian and state and territory government fleet operators.

​

Importer means an organization that is responsible for the import of new tires. This includes tire manufacturers, tire importers, vehicle importers, and mining tire importers.

​

Landfill means waste disposal sites used for the authorized deposit of solid waste onto or into land.

 

Local government is a government entity with powers and geographical distribution established by a state or the Northern Territory. A ‘Local government’ can also be referred to as a local council, city, shire, town, or municipality.

 

Miners mean businesses or organizations that are engaged in the exploration for, and extraction and primary processing of, minerals including coal and petroleum. Primary processing is taken to include the processing of minerals up to the first pouring of refined metal but fabrication beyond that stage is excluded.

​

Non-motorized trailer means a trailer, vehicle, caravan or camper towed behind a motorized vehicle.

Off-the Road (ORT) tire means tires that; -Are not fitted or attached to two-wheeled vehicles, passenger cars (including four-wheel drive vehicles), trucks or other large on-road vehicles during their use, irrespective of this use being on road or off road; and -Are used on vehicles involved in heavy-duty applications in industries such as mining, agriculture, aviation, manufacturing, construction and defense (but not limited to those industries); and -Are of a size and/or weight that is incompatible with currently-active tire recovery facilities and related operations (including transport, storage and/or processing steps) designed to recover passenger car and truck tires, in the absence of prior additional or adapted handling or processing steps.

​

Processing mean manual, mechanical or thermal alteration of end-of-life tires for the purpose of recycling or productive reutilization of tire material.

​

Product stewardship means a policy approach recognizing that manufacturers, importers, retailers, governments and other persons have a shared responsibility for the environmental impacts of a product throughout its full life cycle. A product stewardship scheme establishes a means for relevant parties in the product chain to share responsibility for the products they produce, handle, purchase, use and discard.

​

Recovery means the process of extracting materials or energy from a waste stream through reuse, recycling or recovering energy from waste.

 

Recycle means a process to recover constituent materials from end-of-life tires and use those materials to produce other products.

​

Recycling fee means the money that is paid when end-of-life tires change hands in the supply chain and covers the costs associated with activities such as handling, storage, transport and recycling. The Recycling fee includes the Recycling gate fee that is paid to tire recyclers.

 

Recycling gate fee means the money paid to a tire recycler to ensure the environmentally sound use of end-of-life tires.

 

Retailer means a business or organization that offers products for sale at retail through any means, including sales outlets, catalogs, or the Internet. 

 

Retreader means an entity that gives new tread to a tire. For the purposes of the scheme, a tire retreader is a Retailer.

 

Re-use means to use a collected tire for the same or similar purpose as the original purpose without subjecting the tire to a manufacturing process that would change its physical appearance.

 

Rubber granule means a refined rubber product, typically 2mm - 15mm, made from recycled tires.