India makes a shift in its rules over waste tire imports, requiring recycling and waste management, and prohibiting the production of pyrolysis oil using imported tires.

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has stopped the import of waste tires in India, clarifying the existing regulation, having brought more attention to waste management and recycling. Recently, the Rajya Sabha raised questions about the emissions from pyrolysis plants, casting doubt on the matter.

In response to a written query, Union Minister Kirti Vardhan Singh said under the Hazardous and Other Wastes (Management and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2016, any import is allowed only with respect to recycling and waste management purposes. In the case of imported waste tires, however, the production of tire pyrolysis oil is prohibited. Imports should result in products, such as reclaimed rubber, crumb rubber, or recovered carbon black, rather than importing them.

To strengthen the supervision, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) issued updated Standard Operating Procedures in January 2025 to enhance the performance of pyrolysis plants in terms of environmental protection. These guidelines have already been distributed among all the State Pollution Control Boards so that they can be immediately enforced.

Although rules have become stricter, industry gurus report that there are still some substandard plants that continue to run. The logic applied by people in the recycling and waste management activities is that it needs to meet the current compliance standards and therefore have sustainable processing.

The argument highlights the constant effort that India has to make to ensure the fulfillment of industrial demand through environmentally friendly recycling and recycling management of related waste products, particularly in this era of increased world awareness of the process of tire disposal.