• ndustry body says China discards about 13 million tyres every year
• Recycling this waste could create business worth US$14.2 billion, it said

China will create firms to recycle and re-use rubber tyres as it attempts to tackle a mounting waste problem, the industry ministry said.

The rules, part of efforts to cut pollution and ensure resources were “comprehensively utilised”, were published by the ministry on Wednesday and opened to the public for consultation.

China will aim to expand the tyre recycling business, improve recycling technologies such as thermal cracking, and increase the use of tyre retreading.

It will also encourage the recycling of tyres into rubber powder, the guidelines said.

There were 340 million cars on China’s roads at the end of June, according to transport ministry figures, and the handling of used tyres has become a growing problem.

According to the China Tyre Recycling Association, the country has more than 300 million used and unrecycled tyres, and the figure is rising by about 13 million a year.

Some initiatives to recycle have been launched, including one to turn spent tyres into “rubber asphalt” on roads. Regulators are also considering measures to encourage their use as fuel for cement kilns.

The recycling association said if China recycled only the waste tyres produced every year, an industrial chain worth more than 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) could be created.