STOCKPILES TO SYSTEMS: Designing Functional ELT Frameworks in Africa

March 18, 2026

Africa’s waste tyre crisis is no longer a distant threat; it is unfolding in plain sight. Across the continent, as vehicle ownership rises and substantial imports of used vehicles continue, millions of tyres reach the end of their service life each year.

What happens next is visible almost everywhere. Waste tyres pile up behind repair shops, along highways, and in open dumps. Bulky, non-biodegradable and highly flammable, they occupy valuable land, fuel long-burning fires that release toxic emissions, contaminate soil and groundwater, and create breeding grounds for disease-carrying mosquitoes.

This is not a problem without solutions. Globally, several large-scale recycling and recovery pathways already exist - from material recycling to rubberised roads. Yet in Africa, these solutions remain scattered and underutilised. Waste tyres continue to be one of the least prioritized waste streams, with only a mere handful of countries introducing dedicated regulatory frameworks for them.

This report examines how tyres move through major African economies - from import and use to disposal - and where systems begin to break down. It identifies critical gaps in both regulatory design and recycling infrastructure, showing how current approaches fail to translate intent into on-the-ground outcomes.

This report also moves beyond diagnosis to distill a set of core structural elements that can help countries design operational, implementable and fully workable ELT systems.

Africa cannot afford to treat waste tyres as a peripheral issue any longer. Without deliberate system design, today’s unmanaged flows will harden into tomorrow’s entrenched crisis. The shift from stockpiles to systems is not just necessary - it is urgent and must begin now. 

For any query, please contact

Ishita Garg
ishita.garg@cseindia.org