Editorial

Midnight tire jockeys are forcing legitimate recyclers out of business

By
Gil Kezwer
August 3, 2004

Environment Minister Tony Clement (and his predecessor before this spring's Cabinet shuffle Norm Sterling) may pay lip service to the creed of reduce, reuse, and recycle, but the reality in the scrap tire business in Ontario speaks otherwise.

At present, the equivalent of some 14 million new passenger car tires are sold annually in Ontario, replacing a similar number of scrap tires, according to industry observers. (Using passenger tire equivalents or PTEs, one huge tire on a long-range rig equals eight tires on a family vehicle.)

Garages and tire dealers collect fees of between $2 and $5 per tire from the public for handling and temporarily storing the used tires.

Legitimate rubber recycling companies like Paramount in Vaughan, Recovery Technologies in Cambridge and National in Toronto are in turn paid a cartage cost or tipping fee to haul away these tires.

After separating out the tires which still have some tread, they transform the remainder into a variety of industrial purposes, including asphalt paving and mould injections.

The problem is that legitimate operators are being handicapped by "midnight tire jockeys," criminals armed with a pickup truck, who undercut the recyclers’ cartage fees.

After collecting the tires - and the reduced tipping fees - these fly-by-night operators scratch off the department of transportation identification numbers and dump their newly-acquired tires in abandoned barns or along country roadsides.

LEASING INDUSTRIAL SITES

The more brazen thieves on wheels parlay the game for bigger stakes by leasing industrial sites where they stockpile tires to capacity. When the warehouse is full to bursting, they disappear, forcing the landlord to dispose of the abandoned tires.

The jurisdiction where the dumping or abandoning occurs is then called by the property owners to haul away the tires -which finally end up in the hands of legitimate recyclers.

Compounding the problem, some independent franchise holders are profiteering by not passing on the tire disposal fees they collect. And even some licensed recyclers who have no rubber shredding equipment just haul their tires to landfills in Quebec or the United States.

Meanwhile, recycling companies which have invested millions in machinery are left scrambling for raw material.

Astonishingly, tire stockpiling is perfectly legal and largely unregulated in Ontario. As long as there are fewer than 5,000 tires, an operator doesn't require a licence from the environment ministry.

The potential for a fire--and an environmental catastrophe--is enormous. An inferno at Hagersville south of Hamilton in 1990 burned out of control for 17 days.

The acrid smoke from 13 million tires filled the sky for kilometres, releasing toxic fumes including cancer-causing benzene, and phenols which damage the liver, kidneys, eyes, skin and nervous system.

On July 27 an out of control fire at an illegal dump in Glen Ross near Belleville consumed 3,000 tires and forced the evacuation of householders in the vicinity. Runoff from water pumped by firefighters from CFB Trenton and elsewhere carried hazardous quantities of tolulene and benzene into the nearby Trent River.

On May 23,1998 heavy smoke from burning tires at a fire at a nearby recycling firm forced planes to land on a different runway at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport.

MEGA SITE NEAR LONDON

One of the biggest hazards at present is a site near London, where an estimated 200,000 tires are stored.

A group of stakeholders in the industry held a meeting with then Environment Minister Norm Sterling on August 4, 1998 to make recommendations that would force the pollution pirates out of their lucrative "business," ensure a steady supply of scrap tires to recyclers and reduce the risk of a tire bomb going off.

One simple step would be to reduce the tire storage licence requirement from 5,000 to 1,000 PTEs.

"The ministry has other priorities," said Cathy Wiebe, a waste reduction assistant for Wellington County.

Scrap tires are only 2 per cent of the waste stream, Sterling reportedly told the Tire Stewardship Council of Ontario.

So what is the environment ministry planning to do?

"The ministry is looking to increase efficiencies in the system," said Karen Vaux, an environment ministry spokesperson.

"A provincial waste diversion organization was established on October 7, last year, to look at recycling in Ontario, including the Blue Box and hazardous wastes like tires. The members of this new body will be named this year."

At the time of this writing, no such appointments have been made.

And last November 23 Sterling introduced Bill 82 - the Environmental Statute Law Amendment Act, giving enforcement officers the power necessary to deter and punish those who operate outside the law, including seizing vehicles.

(Vaux wasn't aware of the August 4, 1998 meeting the tire recycling recommendations made then). Her replacement Dan Schultz failed to return repeated calls from Toronto Free Press.

Ontario now has 44 investigators spread across the province. Good luck to them trying to find a midnight tire jockey dumping his load at 3 a.m. on some country road.

Meanwhile, the tipping fee is falling faster than the loonie.

Recyclers are barely recovering their 60 cents cost on every tire they process. The result is chaos in the marketplace.

"The rubber recycling industry has never got off the ground in Ontario," said Don Campbell, president of the Rubber Association of Canada. Only 30 per cent of used tires are now recycled. The remainder are simply abandoned or shipped off to landfills.

If anything, Ontario is regressing in its handling of used tires. Between 1990 and 1994, $240 million was collected through a $5 per tire recycling tax. Only $38 million was disbursed for recycling research. The remainder disappeared into Queen's Park general coffers. Finally, the tax was rescinded four years ago.

A legislated solution to this problem has been adopted by every province except Newfoundland and Ontario.

The former is a bit player compared to Ontario - where more than 40 percent of all vehicles in Canada are registered.

Essentially, the scrap tire stewardship program requires the registration and licensing of all scrap tire haulers and the establishment of an independent board to audit new and used sales.

The haulers would only be paid for a pickup upon the presentation of a receipt from an approved recycling depot.

Eliminating the midnight tire jockeys, ending the profiteering by tire dealers who withhold handling fees they collect, licensing only recyclers who actually have recycling equipment enforcing regulations ignored by unscrupulous operators will make it profitable for bona-fide recyclers to do their environmentally vital business.

But the real benefit will come when Ontario expands its use of used recycled rubber. Switzerland, Belgium, and Germany are already utilizing tires in cement kilns as fuel.

Seventy million tonnes of asphalt are used in commercial applications such as road paving in Ontario annually.

"You wouldn't have a tire problem if you used 1percent of rubber in the wet process," said Campbell.

The recycled rubber provides elasticity and resistance to cold weather cracking, making it a cheap alternative to high-cost polymer-based asphalt cements, he added.

A third use is a crumb rubber - which offers a multiplicity of uses. But the tire derived fuel, asphalt cement and back-to-rubber products all require capital investment and no right thinking businessman would make such an investment today when the profit from tipping fees is being cannibalized by midnight tire jockeys.

Mike Crupi of di Crupi & Sons, a Toronto paving contractor cautions: "The good guys are going to go bankrupt. The bad guys are going to be the winners. There will be no (rubber recycling) in Ontario.

"Everybody is looking for the $50,000 solution to the billion dollar problem," Crupi concludes.

Bottom line? Recycling requires investment. As does the enforcement of ministry of the environment regulations.

Tony Clement, are you listening?