INTERNATIONAL: The used tyres that litter the back streets of cities and towns in Zambia might be an eyesore, but for one company they are also an opportunity to make fuel that could slash the nation's energy import bill while cleaning up its trash. A Zambian company has started making diesel and petrol from used tyres and plastics, a project that could help slash the nation's $1.4 billion annual fuel import bill and clean up the environment.

The project by Zambia's Central African Renewable Energy Corporation has currently processes 1.5 tonnes of waste to make 600-700 litres of diesel and gasoline per day on a pilot basis.

That's hardly enough to dent the country's mountains of rubbish or its $1.4 billion annual fuel import bill for the 140 million litres of petrol a day it consumes.

But for Chief Executive Mulenga Mulenga, it's the start of something bigger.

“The gas that we are producing, the petrol that we are producing, the diesel that we are producing is of a much much lower cost, or the production cost is so much lower than the normal diesel and petrol that you’re getting from your filling stations,” he has said, where workers loaded stacks of used tyres into a furnace.

The company is seeking $60 million in investment to raise daily fuel output to 400 tonnes of diesel, 125 tonnes of petrol, and 30 tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), he said, all at roughly half the cost of imported fuel.

Waste management is a serious challenge for Zambia, and if people are still using fuel, proponents argue, it is better that it come from recycled waste.

"We are cleaning up the environment by taking out all this waste and we are converting it into energy," Mulenga has said.

Rubber is made of long chains of hydrocarbons that can be heated and broken down into something resembling crude oil, which, in the case of synthetic rubber, is what they were to begin with.

Several companies globally are investing in this process, which involves burning waste rubber and plastic in a reactor and then mixing it with a catalyst to produce diesel, gasoline and LPG.

Johnstone Chikwanda of the local think-tank Energy Forum Zambia has said the fuel project could drastically cut Zambia's fuel import bill, create jobs and clean up the environment.

“Anyone who comes up with an idea, with a concept that can produce fuel in the country, that particular initiative has to be supported significantly because it is reducing the burden of depending on imported fuel. It is lessening the burden on looking for forex because if you’re going to be looking for 1.4 billion U.S. dollars every year then you can understand why they Zambian kwacha is constantly under pressure,” Chikwanda has said.

Motorists have showed some enthusiasm in the locally produced fuel, saying it’s a good initiative to help reduce the price of fuel. However some has expressed resistance.

“From the tyres, I don’t think it can be the good fuel,” motorist, Mary Kulefugwe has said while waiting for an attendant at a local station to pour petrol in her car.

Just how "green" such projects are is a subject of debate. From a climate change perspective, it takes a lot of energy to convert the waste into fuel, and its products still release CO2 into the air when burned.

Waste management is a serious challenge for Zambia, and if people are still using fuel, proponents argue, it is better that it come from recycled waste.