Manama: Kuwait security has arrested 15 foreigners for allegedly setting tyres ablaze and starting two fires.
The 14 Bangladeshis and one Nepalese were held after witnesses reported seeing a fire in a scrap area.
The fire was put out, but the firefighters were informed that a second fire broke out near the first site.
During the second operation, the police noticed the presence of foreigners who seemed to be waiting to take the rims and proceeded to arrest them.
Last month, two huge fires engulfed millions of tires in a junk yard in Jahra and in a scrapyard in Amghara, causing an environmental catastrophes and calls by lawmakers to hold a special session to address the issue.
The Amghara warehouse fire Friday less than a month after the Jahra tire-dump blaze strengthens the case for the constructive reuse of the millions of scrap tires in the junkyards of Kuwait.
S. Neelamani, a senior research scientist, told Kuwaiti daily Arab Times that scrap tyres should be used in the construction of floating wave barriers to great environmental and ecological advantage.
The scientist said that tire breakwaters, not disintegrable with seawater, were environment friendly and acted as artificial reefs creating safe havens for juvenile marine life.
However, he told the daily that the worrying part was the external pollutants the scrap tyres carried from the junkyards, and how they should be treated to rid them of the pollutants.
A scientific team is studying the optimum formation of tyres in the breakwater model for Kuwait's conditions.
"The arrangement of tyres has a big bearing on the impact of waves on the floating structure," the daily said.
