As a tyre retailer or workshop owner in Australia, keeping up with the evolving regulations of tyre recycling in Australia is no longer just a matter of good housekeeping. The national approach to end-of-life tyre management is shifting from a voluntary effort to a strict regulatory mandate. With the Australian House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Innovation and Science actively conducting a public inquiry into the tyre industry throughout 2026, the push for mandatory reporting is gaining serious traction. For local businesses, this means that manual bookkeeping and guesses on disposal compliance are about to become significant operational liabilities.
The Documentation Gap: Where the Liability Rests
For more than a decade, the National Tyre Product Stewardship Scheme has operated on an industry-led, voluntary basis. However, the voluntary scheme has hit its natural performance ceiling. A landmark supply chain analysis commissioned by Tyre Stewardship Australia (TSA) revealed a massive free-rider problem: companies responsible for 47% of replacement tyre imports and 99% of vehicle-fitted tyre imports currently choose not to contribute to the voluntary recycling levy, creating an uneven playing field that penalises responsible operators.
Because the voluntary system has been unable to lift national recycling and resource recovery rates above current limits, local governments and industry bodies have petitioned the federal government to implement a mandatory co-regulatory or regulated framework. When these laws take effect under the Recycling and Waste Reduction Act 2020, every automotive business will face strict legal reporting requirements to prove that their end-of-life tyres are being routed to accredited, compliant recyclers.
The Nightmare of Manual EPU Tracking
The core currency of the tyre stewardship scheme is the Equivalent Passenger Unit, or EPU. This standardised unit of measurement is based on the weight of a standard passenger car tyre, which is standardised at 9.5 kilograms when new and 8 kilograms at the end of life. Under the scheme, different categories of tyres carry different EPU ratios: a standard passenger car tyre is 1 EPU, a light truck tyre is 2 EPUs, and a large commercial truck tyre is counted as 5 EPUs.
When reporting becomes mandatory, tracking these metrics manually will be a labour-intensive administrative bottleneck. Your staff will have to review every job card, calculate the exact EPU weight totals, and cross-reference them with the tyre disposal fees charged on invoices. This manual data entry carries an inevitable risk of error, which can result in incorrect compliance audits, mismatched stock records, and potentially heavy regulatory fines.
The Expert Solution: Automated Levy Tracking
To protect your business from the impending compliance burden, workshops must move away from analogue record-keeping. The only way to handle these requirements efficiently is to implement specialised tyre shop management software that automates the tracking of environmental and tyre levies at the transaction level.
By embedding the calculations directly into your point-of-sale workflow, you eliminate manual data entry entirely. This ensures that every transaction is compliant, accurate, and completely auditable from day one.
Compliance at the Point of Sale with COSTAR
COSTAR’s integrated inventory module provides the exact tools needed to navigate these new regulations without adding administrative headcount. Instead of using complex, manual kits to add disposal fees to a quote, COSTAR allows you to set up environmental levies directly within your Product Type Maintenance.
By using Special Item Maintenance, you can set up a specific Tire Levy (such as code TL) and click the designated Tire Levy and Enviro Levy checkboxes. This ensures that the system is aware of multiple tyre levies and can accurately manage exemption procedures.
From there, you can utilise the specialised Enviro Tab within your Product Type Maintenance to set up environmental levies directly on whole product categories. This means a single entry on a tyre product type can automatically apply the correct tyre levy to thousands of individual tyre items in your inventory.
When a sales representative adds a tyre to an order entry document, COSTAR immediately places the associated levy on the document following the item. This simplifies EPU tracking on the workshop floor, creating an instant, audit-ready data trail while automatically managing:
- Remittance Automation: Through the Environment G/L Assignments, COSTAR can automatically clear tyre levies to Accounts Payable, defining the accredited supplier or authority you wish to remit the funds to.
- Automatic Auditing: The system isolates these specific charges for compliance auditing, ensuring your records perfectly match the standardised ratios required by Tyre Stewardship Australia.
- Instant Reporting: The Enviro Levy Report automatically generates the required accounting entries to payables, located under Financials, G/L Reports, Enviro Levy Reports, Enviro Levy Report.
This seamless integration turns a complex regulatory reporting requirement into an instant, background process, freeing your staff to focus on serving customers rather than filling out compliance paperwork.
Future-Proof Your Workshop
As the Australian government moves closer to enforcing a mandatory tyre stewardship model, the workshops that embrace digital processes will thrive. By automating your tracking, you protect your bottom line, ensure legal compliance, and build a more professional business.
Stay ahead of the auditors. See how COSTAR automates your tyre stewardship reporting today.
