5 November 2008
Successful Recycling
Saskatchewan’s Road to Recycling
With ten successful years under its belt, Saskatchewan is poised to clean up its used tire stockpiles by 2010.
Although Saskatchewan’s tire recycling program got off to a bit of a bumpy start, it’s now celebrating a happy 10th anniversary with successful programs in place, and a productive future ahead.
Many of Saskatchewan’s recycled tires are turned into crumb,
which in turn is used to make road surfaces.
In fact, the program was originally launched more than 12 years ago. “In ’96 the powers that be came together and decided that they were going to put together an industry-driven program whereby retailers would voluntarily support the cause and they would deal with the scrap tires,” says Theresa McQuoid, executive director, Saskatchewan Scrap Tire Corporation.
By 1998, however, it became painfully clear that depending on businesses to voluntarily participate wasn’t going to work. “By 1998 the program was suffering financially to such a degree that we probably should have shut the doors and ran,” jokes McQuoid. “So they lobbied the government to make the program mandatory.”
Legislation was passed that required retailers to participate in the program or operate a program. Since operating a program requires retailers to run a province-wide program, as well as deal with historical tires in landfills, the Scrap Tire Corporation stepped in and took on that responsibility. Today, Saskatchewan’s tire recycling program has well over 1,200 participants.
Requirements
Retailers are required to collect the tire recycling fee on every new tire sold—$4 for passenger car and light truck tires, $9 for medium truck tires, $15 for agricultural tires, and between $35-$75 for mining and OTR tires.
“The funds must be remitted to the Scrap Tire Corporation, which is a non-government program,” McQuoid says. “We use those funds to collect the scrap from their places of business and take them to the recycling facilities.”
Manufacturers that direct-sell into Saskatchewan must also collect the same fees and remit them.
“We have two processors—one in Saskatoon and one in Assiniboia—that handle the tire flow,” McQuoid says. “So we have our collectors deliver to one of the two facilities.”
The majority of tires are either shredded or turned into crumb, “which is a great alternative to sand in playgrounds and sports fields,” McQuoid says. “They’re also used for paving, turned into paving stones you can use on your patio, deck or sidewalks, made into speed bumps, and so forth.”
Historical tires
One of the areas the province is focusing on is historical tires—tires that have been sitting in landfill sites since before the recycling program was started. “Scrap Tire Corporation directs surplus funds to clean up landfills,” McQuoid says. “We call it ‘Phase 2’ and over the past 10 years we’ve been cleaning up those stockpiles with the goal of having everything cleaned up by 2010.”
Success
Currently, the province is recapturing about 73% of tires from retailers, which is better than it might sound. Where do the other 27% of tires disappear to? “A lot of the tires we classified as sold are on new vehicles, so they won’t enter the system for a couple of years,” McQuoid says. “Then we have a percentage of tires that go back out into the community. We have a large farming population and they like to use old tires on the farm for their implements, so you lose a certain percentage to that stream. Then there’s that certain percentage that’s unknown— out of province vehicles, for instance.”
Future
Looking to the future, McQuoid says her organization wants to focus on the fundamentals. “Right now our challenges are to address the commitments we have, such as landfill and private stockpiles, so that we can get those completed and move on with other initiatives. In the near future, we would definitely like to direct more of our energies to research and development and to encourage communities to use scrap tire material in their projects.” | 
