Research and analysis

Progress update (August 2026): Environment Agency's regulation of waste pneumatic tyres and their export

Updated 13 August 2026

Applies to England

This update is for waste tyre exporters, regulators, local authorities and anyone with an interest in how the Environment Agency manages waste tyres exported from England.

It explains up to 3 August 2026:

• what our latest checks show
• what action we are taking
• what exporters need to do next
• how we will publish future updates

Progress made

Since October 2025, we have carried out enhanced checks on waste tyre exports from England. These checks help us confirm:

• where tyres are sent
• whether they reached the intended destination
• whether the waste is managed in a way that protects the environment

This update covers notices for information issued to waste tyre exporters between 1 October 2025 and 31 July 2026. The figures show the latest available position on 3 August 2026.

The latest figures show progress, but there is still more to do. As of 3 August 2026:

• we had received details of 10,822 shipments of waste tyres
• 5,819 shipments had reached the 16-week deadline for evidence of their arrival
• 3,837 shipments, or 62.12%, were either fully or partially compliant
• 1,091 shipments, or 17.66%, were recorded as non-compliant

Full compliance rose from 7.25% in early May to 15.67% on 3 August 2026. This shows that our interventions are having a positive impact and that the quality of evidence is improving.

We continue to receive return tracking evidence at pace, and some submissions cover several shipments. We review every piece of evidence provided, but a substantial amount is still waiting to be assessed. This means some shipments currently recorded as having insufficient or no evidence may already have evidence waiting for review.

What exporters need to do next

From 1 August 2026, exporters of waste tyres moved to our new interim compliance approach. This keeps proportionate checks in place and helps us focus on the highest-risk activity before digital waste tracking starts in 2027.

Annex VII is the document that travels with certain waste shipments. It records key information about the waste, the exporter and where the waste is meant to go.

The interim compliance approach has 2 parts:

Part 1

Exporters must provide Annex VII shipment information for each calendar month by the 21st day of the following month. For example, information for August shipments is due by 21 September 2026. Monthly submissions will continue until October 2027.

Part 2

Exporters must provide details of any new destination treatment facilities in India for review before using those sites for shipments.

We will continue to track shipments made up to and including 31 July 2026 that have not yet reached the 16-week deadline. Based on that deadline, all return tracking evidence for these shipments is due by 20 November 2026.

Our enforcement action

We have built a substantial evidence base on exporter performance. We are focusing our resources on operators with consistently poor compliance. This includes issuing formal warning letters and prohibition notices where needed. The letters make clear that operators must improve the quality and timeliness of their evidence. We will continue to monitor this closely.

If performance does not improve significantly, we will consider further enforcement action. This may include:

• requiring information before shipment
• requiring return tracking evidence
• issuing further prohibition notices
• taking other regulatory action

We may use these measures separately or together.

We have already used enforcement tools where operators have not met our expectations. We have:

• issued 5 fixed penalty notices, with a further 39 fixed penalty notices under consideration
• served 26 prohibition notices to prevent further exports
• sent 32 warnings about geotagged photograph evidence and 31 warnings about Annex VII information

Our enforcement and sanctions policy explains how we use our enforcement and sanctioning powers for environmental breaches and offences.

Future updates

We will continue to publish data on the expired enhanced compliance notices. This will help show whether exporters are complying with the law. We expect to publish a further update in mid-October 2026, covering information received between July and September 2026.

We then expect to publish another update in mid-January 2027, covering October to December 2026. This should include the vast majority of shipments. Data from the separate interim compliance approach that started on 1 August 2026 will be reported separately.