Products

Tires and Product Stewardship

In 2006, an estimated 5 million scrap tires were generated in Washington State alone. In Oregon, the last estimate of waste tire generation occurred in 1989, with two million waste tires and nearly half these tires discarded and unclaimed. The number of scrap tires continues to increase each year as the number of vehicles on the road and miles driven increases.

What Is The Problem?

It takes around 22 gallons of crude oil, along with steel and natural rubber to make a new tire. When tires are landfilled or stockpiled, the value of these resources is lost. Many scrap tires in Washington end up in a landfill. Washington is one of the few states with no restrictions on landfilling tires.

Tire piles continue to be a problem in areas of Washington and Oregon. Tire piles are a breeding ground for rats and mosquitoes and are prone to fires. Tire pile fires are extremely difficult to extinguish and release many pollutants into the air, water and soils that are a threat to human health. Cleanups have cost taxpayers many millions of dollars.

The Product Stewardship Solution

Scrap tire management requires a long-term business-managed system for addressing newly discarded tires. In a product stewardship approach, the manufacturers, distributors and/or retailers of tires work together (or take responsibility as individual businesses) to provide for the collection, transport, recycling, disposal, market development and clean-up of discarded tires and tire waste.

Thirty-five states have tire fee programs and all but one Canadian province has fee or stewardship programs. The characteristics of the most successful of these should be incorporated into a meaningful, comprehensive and sustainable program for using a product stewardship model. In Washington, Les Schwab practices product stewardship as an individual company by accepting used tires for recycling from businesses and residents for a fee at most retail locations.

British Columbia has a model program, provided by those in the tire industry. The Financial Incentives for Recycling Scrap Tires (FIRST) program began in 1991. In 2006, the British Columbia Environmental Management Act - Recycling Regulation was amended to include a tire product category. The regulation makes tire producers (manufacturer, distributor, importer, retailer) responsible for the life-cycle management of their products, including financing the collection and recycling of discarded products. The program has now transitioned to an industry stewardship program administered by the Tire Stewardship B.C. Association, a not for profit organization formed by the major tire producers and retailers of British Columbia. For more information, see the BC Ministry of Environment Product Stewardship: Tire Product Category.

Learn more about tire product stewardship activities in Washington and Oregon.

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