Tyres are prominent among the items being dumped and Professor P. Agamuthu from the University of Malaya said that illegal tyre dumps pose significant health hazards, as they attract rodents and insects, which can spread diseases.
Tyres provide a breeding ground for mosquitoes, which can multiply 100 times faster than normal in the warm, stagnant water trapped in old tyres and illnesses such as encephalitis and dengue fever have been attributed to mosquitoes breeding in piles of old tyres.