Redisa gets nod to start tyre recycling plan

Published Jan 31, 2013

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Roy Cokayne

An urgent application by the Retail Motor Industry Organisation (RMI) to the North Gauteng High Court for an interdict preventing the implementation of the Recycling and Economic Development Initiative of SA (Redisa) waste tyre plan has been dismissed with costs.

Hermann Erdmann, the chief executive of Redisa, said yesterday that his business was very excited that it could now finally get on with the introduction of the plan. Jeff Osborne, the chief executive of the RMI, said it was extremely disappointed and confused at the rationale of the judgment and was considering its legal options.

The RMI applied for an order declaring Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa’s withdrawal on November 30 of her approval of the Redisa plan gazetted in July null and void.

It also applied to review and set aside Molewa’s approval of a revised Redisa plan gazetted on November 30 for immediate implementation because, among other things, she had allegedly acted contrary to the provisions of the enabling legislation.

The Redisa plan approved and gazetted on November 30 excluded Redisa’s waste tyre reduction targets.

Judge Neil Tuchten, in a judgment last year granting the RMI a temporary interdict halting the implementation of the Redisa plan, said these targets in the approved version of the Redisa plan were a material provision of the plan but had been omitted from the version published for public comment.

The RMI claimed Molewa’s withdrawal of her earlier approval of the Redisa plan “was nothing but an ingenious but unlawful stratagem to foil the consequences” of the court order it obtained.

However, Judge Bert Bam said yesterday that the Waste Act empowered Molewa to amend any promulgated waste tyre management plan and differed with the view of Judge Tuchten that the waste tyre reduction targets were material.

Judge Bam said it did not seem to him that anybody or entity would be prejudiced by the deletion of the waste tyre reduction targets, which would also not have any effect on the implementation of the plan. The RMI previously argued that the regulations stated a plan must contain waste tyre reduction targets.

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