Yorkshire business 'comes to the rescue' after thousands of tyres illegally dumped on Yorkshire nature reserve

A Yorkshire business 'came to the rescue' after thousands of tyres were illegally dumped on a Yorkshire nature reserve.

More than 1000 tyres were dumped on the Brockdale nature reserve near Pontefract at the start of February 2020.

Speaking to the Yorkshire Evening Post at the time, a spokeswoman for Yorkshire Wildlife Trust said: "As a charity, removing them will cost us time and money we don't have, impacting our vital work for wildlife and nature."

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The trust shared on appeal on Facebook asking for the public's help to remove the tyres.

Business Protyre saw the urgent appeal and sent a team from their Sheffield base to move and recycle the tyres.

As part of the assessment process, Protyre’s team discovered that many were illegal part worn tyres, raising concerns they may have been dumped by rogue traders.

Simon Hiorns, Protyre Retail Director, said: “The illegal fly tipping of over 1000 tyres in an area of outstanding natural beauty and a crucial habitat for wildlife is a terrible act of environmental vandalism.

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“When we were alerted to what had happened, our immediate response was to offer our help and expertise to Yorkshire Wildlife Trust to remove this blight on the reserve.

“Our inspection team attended the site to inspect the tyres, established they were safe to remove and then made the arrangements to dispose of them with our recycling partner.

He added: “What was interesting from our inspection was the number of illegal part worn tyres we identified.

"Illegal part worn tyres are the scourge of the tyre industry, sold by unscrupulous traders with no consideration of the safety and environmental risks they pose.

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“The environmental impact comes from the four million additional scrap casings generated for disposal in the UK that comes from illegal part worn tyres. This incident of fly tipping at the reserve may well be linked to this disposal process.”

Karen McDiarmid, Nature Reserves Team Leader at Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, said: “We were devastated last week to discover up to 1,000 fly tipped tyres at Brockadale nature reserve, a much-loved and ecologically important reserve.

"After sharing our story, we were overwhelmed by the response we received from members of the public, local communities, organisations and the media, all offering their support.

"We are truly grateful to Protyre for reaching us and offering to remove and recycle the tyres free of charge.

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"Their extraordinary gesture of goodwill has saved us hundreds of pounds; vital funds that can now be spent on our work to protect and restore Yorkshire’s wildlife and wild places.”