Cleaning up the Province One Tire Pile at a Time - SSTC

Since it began in 1996, the Saskatchewan Scrap Tire Corporation (SSTC) has recycled over 3 million tires. This significant milestone was achieved in 2002, and SSTC just keeps on trucking. From January - September, 2003, SSTC's registered collectors have delivered another 434,000 tires to processors to be recycled.

Keeping the scrap tires out of provincial landfills is very important to the SSTC. The SSTC removes scrap tires from registered landfills when excess monies are available. Many municipalities are limited to the space available for waste disposal. With the banning of tires coming into the sites, landfills are able to maximize land without worrying about tire storage. The SSTC had over 290 municipal sites registered to have their properties cleaned of scrap tires.

In 2002, the SSTC removed over 2.7 million pounds of scrap tire material from 17 municipal landfills at no cost to the communities. Since 1999, over 14 million pounds of scrap tire material have been removed from 80 landfills. A number of sites that no longer contain any tires have been removed from the list because they do not require a clean up under the program. It is important to notify the SSTC if there are no surface tires at your landfill to clean up - this speeds up the whole clean up process for everyone.

(Source: WasteWatch, October 2003)

Saskatchewan Scrap Tire Corporation is on a Roll

On November 1, 2006, Saskatchewan Scrap Tire Corporation (SSTC) celebrated a recycling milestone, marking the eight millionth used tire collected under the province-wide tire recycling program.

The milestone comes just ten years into the tire program’s history, demonstrating its tremendous success in diverting millions of potentially hazardous and environmentally harmful nuisance products from the Saskatchewan waste stream and recycling them into useful, marketable items.

“Most people probably don’t know that the small recycling fee they pay when they re-tire a vehicle or buy a new car has made such a huge difference for the environment. Can you imagine what eight million tires would look like in a landfill?” said SSTC Chairman Don Schlosser.

“Instead, the rubber from these tires has been reclaimed and recycled into products like patio paving blocks and safer playground surfaces for children. Tires recycled in Saskatchewan have been put to many good uses, from sports fields in our communities to better road and street construction projects,” Schlosser added.

“Truck bed liners, livestock feeders, vehicle ramps, planters, mats – they’re all being made from our scrap tires, and we’re finding more good uses all the time.”

Over the past decade, SSTC and its partners have cleaned over 150 municipal tire stockpiles that have been building up for several decades. This has added years to the lives of landfills (important – and expensive – pieces of infrastructure), helped the environment, and reduced the health and safety risks posed by the scrap tires. Approximately 140 more landfills have yet to be reclaimed.

“Once this phase is complete, we will start to address private tire stockpiles,” said Schlosser. “That’s part of our mandate, too – but the program costs rise year after year, and we never seem to have sufficient revenue to tackle them.”

As a result, the SSTC also announced changes in its tire recycling fees – the first increase since the program’s inception in 1996. These fees are levied by the province’s 1,200 tire retailers on all tires sold, and remitted to SSTC. The new rates take effect February 1, 2007.

Schlosser says the old fees no longer covered the cost of reclaiming the tires. “Without a rate increase, the future of this important environmental program was in doubt. The cost of virtually all inputs, particularly fuel and utilities, have risen dramatically over the past decade. So the fees that sustained the program for its first ten years are simply no longer sufficient.”

The new fees will mean that SSTC can continue to collect scrap tires from retailer sites as they are generated, and deal with the backlog still present in municipal landfills and properties across the province.

The new rates vary depending on the type of tire. For passenger car and light truck tires, by far the largest category sold, the fees will increase 50 cents from $3.50 to $4 per tire. For medium truck tires, the recycling fee will increase from $5 to $9 apiece. For agriculture tires, the new rate will be $15 each, up from $10. And for the larger “off the road” tires, such as those used on mining equipment, the fees will rise from $35 per tire to an average of between $35 and $75 apiece.

“The revised fees more accurately reflect the actual cost of collecting and recycling these various categories of tires,” explained Schlosser. “They also bring Saskatchewan’s rates more in line with those levied in other provinces.”

“When you look at the tire recycling programs offered in other provinces, many operate as branches of government or huge administrations. We’re doing just as effective a job – if not better – with three paid staff members and a volunteer board of directors representing tire retailers, environmental groups and municipal associations,” Schlosser stated.

“I think it’s fair to say we’ve exceeded all expectations that may have been projected for our first ten years of operation. With the ongoing support of Saskatchewan people and our member associations, we plan to continue that trend well into the future.”

(Source: WasteWatch, December 2006)

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