Tractor Tyre Disposal: Recycling Options for Agricultural Operations

Updated on: 22nd February 2026 By:     Conor Murphy
Expert review by:     Kieran Donnelly

Walk around the back of almost any working farm and you’ll find a pile of old tyres somewhere. A stack of worn tractor tyres beside a barn, a few combine harvester tyres leaning against a hedge, some trailer tyres beside the workshop. It’s one of those problems that accumulates slowly until it becomes an eyesore, a regulatory concern, and eventually a clearance job that nobody wants to organise.

The reasons agricultural tyres accumulate are understandable. They’re large and awkward to move. The nearest tyre recycler is often 30 or 40 kilometres away, and transporting a pile of tractor tyres costs money for what feels like a disposal cost rather than a recovery. The volume from any single farm is usually too small to justify a dedicated collection visit on commercial terms. And the tyres themselves arrive gradually, one or two at a time, in a way that never quite creates the critical mass that triggers action.

The result is that agricultural tyre waste often sits in storage longer than it should, creating fire risk, regulatory exposure, and increasingly an environmental permit issue for farms that hold waste in quantities that trigger registration requirements.

This guide covers the practical disposal and processing options for agricultural tyre waste, including what can be done on-farm, what requires specialist contractors, and how the choice of approach changes with the volume of tyres being generated.

The Agricultural Tyre Size Range: More Varied Than It Appears

Agricultural machinery generates a surprisingly wide range of tyre sizes. A working arable farm might have tractors in the 100 to 200hp range with rear tyres in the 480/70R34 to 710/70R42 range, trailers on 500/45-22.5 tyres, a telehandler on 400/80-24 tyres, and a combine harvester on drive axle tyres of 800/65R32 or larger. Add implements with their own tyres, road transport vehicles, and occasional specialist equipment, and the farm tyre stream covers a range from standard commercial van sizes through to genuine OTR sizes for the largest harvester and self-propelled sprayer equipment.

This size diversity matters for processing because there is no single piece of equipment that handles everything from van-sized trailer tyres to a combine harvester drive axle tyre. The processing approach has to be matched to the sizes actually being generated.

Standard agricultural trailer tyres (400 to 520mm section width, road-going profiles) are close to truck tyre geometry and can be processed through the truck tyre sidewall cutter and baled in the MKII Tyre Baler.

Standard tractor tyres (smaller front tyres up to about 600mm section width) can often be processed through agricultural-specific sidewall cutting equipment and baled after pre-processing.

Large tractor and combine tyres (600mm section width and above, particularly large rear drive tyres) move into OTR territory and may require the agricultural tyre shear or OTR equipment depending on their exact dimensions.

Very large harvester and spreader tyres of 800mm section width and above are effectively OTR tyres in terms of processing requirement, needing either on-site cutting for size reduction or specialist collection.

Disposal Routes Available to Agricultural Operators

1. Agricultural Tyre Dealer Collection

The most straightforward route for most farms is the tyre dealer take-back arrangement. When a dealer fits replacement tyres on a tractor or other agricultural machine, they typically collect the old tyres as part of the service.

The economics of this arrangement vary. Some dealers include take-back as part of the fitting cost; others charge a disposal fee for larger agricultural tyres that are expensive to manage. For farms using a regular dealer relationship, confirming take-back terms at the point of ordering tyres is the simplest way to ensure disposal is handled.

The limitation is that this route only works for tyres being replaced in a fitting event. The pile of old tyres already in the yard, accumulated over several years, doesn’t get resolved by a dealer fitting appointment.

2. Licensed Waste Carrier Collection

A licensed tyre recycling contractor or waste carrier can collect agricultural tyres from the farm and transport them to a licensed processing facility. This is the most flexible route for clearing existing stockpiles.

Collection costs vary by location, tyre size, and volume. Smaller standard agricultural tyres may be collected at costs comparable to truck tyres. Very large combine and OTR-class tyres attract higher collection fees due to their size and the specialist handling required. For farms in rural locations, travel costs for the collecting vehicle also factor into the price.

For significant clearances (10 or more tyres, or any quantity including large OTR-class tyres), get quotes from multiple contractors and confirm that each is a registered waste carrier. Confirm the receiving facility’s environmental permit status. Keep waste transfer notes for all movements.

3. On-Farm Processing

For farms or agricultural contractors generating sufficient tyre volumes to justify equipment investment, on-farm processing using a dedicated agricultural tyre shear or cutting equipment reduces the tyres to a size suitable for more efficient transport, or produces a baled output that can be supplied to downstream processors or energy recovery facilities.

The agricultural tyre shear is designed for the geometry and construction of tractor and agricultural machinery tyres. It cuts the tyre into sections that can be transported more efficiently than whole tyres and reduces the physical awkwardness of handling large tractor tyres individually.

For larger agricultural operations with a continuous tyre replacement programme (arable contractors, large estate farming operations, agricultural machinery dealers with a high service volume), on-farm processing capability converts a disposal cost into a more manageable operational activity.

4. Agricultural Producer Responsibility Schemes

UK tyre producers and importers fund end-of-life tyre management through producer responsibility schemes under the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations framework. Agricultural tyres are included within the broader tyre producer responsibility framework, though the collection infrastructure for large agricultural tyres in rural areas is less developed than for car and commercial vehicle tyres.

Some waste tyre schemes offer collection services specifically for agricultural tyres, with periodic collection rounds or designated drop-off points in rural areas. Contact the UK waste tyre scheme operators (Tyredex, Retread UK, and others) to understand what specific provisions exist for agricultural tyres in your area.

Fire Risk: The Urgent Reason Not to Stockpile

Agricultural tyre fires are a category of incident that the agricultural fire service encounters regularly. The combination of isolated location, often limited water supply access, and the very large rubber mass of agricultural tyres creates fires that are extremely difficult to extinguish and that cause significant environmental damage from runoff and toxic smoke.

A fire in a yard stack of combine harvester tyres produces dense, toxic black smoke visible for miles. The rubber burns intensely; firefighting requires vast quantities of water or foam that become contaminated runoff requiring environmental management. The cleanup costs from a significant agricultural tyre fire can be substantial.

From a regulatory perspective, agricultural businesses storing waste tyres in quantities above certain thresholds may require an environmental permit or registered exemption under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016. Permit conditions typically specify maximum quantities, separation distances, and fire risk management requirements. Farms accumulating tyres without the appropriate permit are exposed to enforcement action.

The practical advice is straightforward: regular disposal, rather than accumulation, is both the safer and the more compliant approach. Setting up a regular annual or biannual clearance arrangement with a licensed contractor costs less in the long run than managing a significant stockpile, and eliminates the fire and regulatory risk.

How Sidewall Cutting Improves Agricultural Tyre Processing

For agricultural tyre operations where the volume justifies cutting equipment, sidewall removal significantly improves the economics of the subsequent baling and transport stages.

Agricultural tractor tyres, particularly large rear drive tyres, are highly resistant to compression when whole. The combination of thick sidewalls, flexible tread construction (designed to deform and increase ground contact area to reduce soil compaction), and large overall diameter creates a tyre that a standard baler struggles to compress to a useful density.

After sidewall removal, the remaining tyre body is a tread band and belt assembly without the circumferential spring-back of the intact sidewall. It compresses much more readily, produces a denser bale, and loads into a container more efficiently than whole agricultural tyres.

For the agricultural tyre sizes that fall within the range of the truck tyre sidewall cutter, combining sidewall cutting with baling in the MKII Tyre Baler produces a good quality output for energy recovery or civil engineering applications. For larger agricultural tyres requiring the agricultural tyre shear, the cut sections can be baled or compacted for transport after processing.

Rural Tyre Dealer Considerations

Agricultural tyre dealers and rural fast-fit operators accumulate a mixed stream of agricultural and commercial tyres alongside standard car and van tyres. Managing this mixed stream requires a processing approach that covers the full size range without requiring a separate specialised machine for every tyre type.

In practice, most rural dealers find that the majority of their tyre volume falls into manageable categories: car and van tyres processed through the standard route, smaller agricultural trailer and implement tyres handled alongside truck tyres, and the occasional large tractor or combine tyre requiring either specialist processing or separate collection.

The break-even for on-site processing equipment at a rural dealer depends on the specific tyre mix and volumes. A dealer fitting 50 or more large agricultural tyres per month is likely to find on-site processing cost-effective. A dealer fitting 5 to 10 per month is generally better served by a specialist collection arrangement for the agricultural tyre fraction while processing standard car and commercial tyres on-site.

Contact Gradeall International to discuss the right equipment configuration for your specific tyre mix and volumes. With nearly 40 years of experience supplying tyre processing equipment to operations across the UK and internationally, the team can advise on the most practical and cost-effective approach for rural and agricultural tyre volumes.

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