Ontario to set up scrap tyre recycling program

Toronto, Canada -- Ontario Environment Minister John Gerretsen has directed Waste Diversion Ontario, the provincial corporation that creates and oversees recycling programs, to set up a scrap tyre recycling program in Ontario.

The program should be consumer-oriented and funded by tyre brand owners and first importers in Ontario, Mr. Gerretsen said in a letter to Waste Diversion Ontario Chair Gemma Zecchini. It should also place priority on recycling and retreading, fostering the development of “green” technology, with landfilling and incineration to be used only when other options are unavailable or not technically feasible, he said. He directed Mr. Zeccchini to have a proposed program on his desk by year-end.

Ontario is the only Canadian province without a scrap tyre stewardship program. It has not had a program since 1993, when an unpopular scrap tyre fee of $5 on each new tyre sold in the province was repealed. Since then, tyre retailers have charged $2 to $5 per tyre to dispose of customers' scrap tyres, and as many as half of the 12 million tyres generated in the province each year have gone to the US for tyre-derived fuel.

Glenn Maidment, president of the Rubber Association of Canada, said RAC members would support the programme.

“We accept what the government is asking us to do, and we will roll up our sleeves and start working to give the province a tyre program that will work,” Maidment said.

From Tire Business (A Crain publication)