Tires/Tyres comes full circle for Kuwait's Tire graveyards

Relationship of tires and Kuwait should be like any other country but somewhere along the way ended up with the title of the world's largest tire graveyard. With a few incidents over the years, the title resurfaces with videos of the dark black plumes of smoke rising from the sea of scrap tires. Anyone who visits this graveyard which is supposed to be the resting place for the used tires will be in awe as one can only see black tires till the eyes can see. This graveyard was placed on the outskirts in the middle of the desert, so one can see dark black areas in the yellow background of the desert on the satellite images or even in high altitude photos taken by drones, helicopter or planes.

Courtesy to Mark of 248am.com

The history of the tire graveyard is as old as 30 years back when Kuwait was liberated from the Iraqi occupation in 1991. Even during that time, the amount of scrap vehicles and used & damaged tires needed to be placed somewhere in Kuwait which was huge due to occupation. The area north of the tire graveyard was until recently a huge area dealing in vehicle scraps which have been relocated around 2-3 years back. Kuwait has since 30 years been stacking up on the tires with a small amount being used for recycling or even being exported, which has resulted in the large scale quantity estimated to be around 50+ million tires.

CLICK HERE for the article by Mark of  of 248am.com

There have been a lot of coverage on the tire graveyard but mainly takes place when ever a fire incident breaks out & everyone starts talking about environmental damage and other such issues. But these topics keep rising & falling down which we have witnessed over the decades. It seems like we have started moving in the right direction to solving this problem, slowly but definitely moving to solve.

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Now giving some clarity to the terms that are used:

Kuwait' s tire graveyard is situated in the area South of Jahra officially known as 'Rehayah' (also pronounced as Erhayya) ( منطقة إرحية). Popularly people refer this area as Sulaibiya Tire graveyard aka مقبرة الاطارات. It was spread over an area of 100,000 square meters with the tires stacked over each  in open grounds with sand walls bordering on the sides contrary to the popular beliefs of sand pits in the desert. Also it has no signs of being a tire mountain.

Tire Graveyard - Courtesy to PACI GIS.

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Courtesy to Ahmed AlQallaf of Rehayah Tire Graveyard

The following photo is what pops up on Google maps which would refer to the fire incident that took place in the Rehayah tire graveyard during the start of the year. The fire was put out within hours by Kuwait Fire force which affected 5,000 square meters area. It was noted to be a deliberate act of arson. (CLICK HERE for the article) (CLICK HERE for the KUNA article)

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Courtesy to Kuwait EPA for 12 January 2021 at Rehayah

Courtesy to Google Maps (May 2021)

After the fire incident of 17 April 2012, Kuwait government took cognizance of the matter and have worked towards resolving the matter on multiple fronts. The above incident became known internationally as NASA's image brought it to the forefront and the Five million tire fire resounded around the globe. (CLICK HERE for the NASA article) (CLICK HERE for the KUNA article)

Courtesy to NASA

Kuwait's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has come up with a road map to resolve the whole waste tire issue within Kuwait. It is working on multiple fronts to resolve the issue. Listing below is few of the actions being taken by Kuwait's EPA:

1. Initiating & supervising the licensing of Tire recycling plants (currently trying to set up 4 new plants)  (CLICK HERE for the article)

2. Receiving new location by the Kuwait Municipality so as to relocate all the tires from the Rehayah Tire graveyard. (CLICK HERE for the article) - Received in November 2020.

3. Supervising the companies in moving the tires from Rehayah to Salmi Area which will take around a year. (CLICK HERE for the KUNA article) - estimated to finish in August 2021 (current 95% done)

4. Handing over Rehayah area (which was initially under Public Authority for Industry & Kuwait Municipality) to Public Authority for Housing Welfare for the development of the South Saad Al Abdullah smart city project. (CLICK HERE for the article)  

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Courtesy of Ali Ameer / Droneholic.kw of Rehayah Tire Graveyard

Currently there is a site in Al Salmi Area which was prepared 2-3 years back with one Recycling Plant function at the location. Most of the tires which are being scrapped across Kuwait is ending up there (CLICK HERE for the EPA article).

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Courtesy of Kuwait EPA - Inspecting existing recycling plant

In the last one year 3 fire incidents took place at the tire storage area in the above location.

On 15 October 2020 (CLICK HERE for the KUNA article). During the October 2020 fire incident, the burning area of 25,000 square meters was isolated from the rest of the 900,000 square meters with an estimated 1 million tires burning. (CLICK HERE for the EPA article)

On 13 February 2021, 3 separate fires at Salmi area were handled by the Kuwait Fire Force.

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Courtesy to Kuwait EPA on 13 February 2021 fire incident

On 29 April 2021, fire broke which was tended by Kuwait Fire Force.

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Courtesy to Kuwait Fire Force on 29 April 2021 fire incident

The new relocation area for Rehayah Tire graveyard stock is also near to this particular location. There is no visible Satellite image on google maps for this area at this moment. One of the twitter users Kosmi, was able to access using the Sentinel imagery service, the latest movement of Tires reducing at Rehayah site and tires being placed in Salmi Area. 

CLICK HERE to view the image for Rehayah area (GIF image) 

CLICK HERE to view the image for Salmi area (GIF image)