Tire Recycling

May 07, 2010  

With the recent clean-up that we did on April 24 up here in Wrightwood, (cleaned up illegal dumping), I have learned much about a problem that exists in the upper desert. Well, it exists everywhere but the upper desert in Southern California is my back yard. The problem is tires. There are piles of tires all over the desert that have been illegally dumped. Now, some of those tires have been dumped by people that just don't care, those are easy to spot because they are usually right next to other miscellaneous junk and hazardous waste that the same individuals have dumped. We will leave law enforcement to deal with those individuals, but we will clean up the mess.

The other reason for the dumping is the high cost to dispose of tires. The county of San Bernardino accepts tires at the local landfills and transfer stations. For this service they charge $5.00 per tire and only 9 at a time. The reason for the nine is state law that only allows 9 or less tire to be hauled without a permit. 10 of more tires requires a permit that can cost up to $300.00 a year. This is not a incentive for people to do the right thing. When you buy a tire in California you pay $2.75 as a disposal fee. So those are the fees, what we are concerned about is the high cost of disposal.

The county collects the $5.00 fee. Then the tires are sent to the Mitsubishi Cement Plant in Lucerne Valley. Mitsubishi burns the tires to make their cement. It is actually a decent program, nothing come out the other end, the entire tire is used and the emissions are within California Air Quality standards and EPA regulations. Mitsubishi charges literally a few pennies for each tire they receive due to state requirements regarding manifests and hazardous waste documentation. That leaves the $4.00+ balance of the fee, and according to a local company that hauls tires for profit, it would only cost roughly $.60 per tire to make the journey from the Phelan landfill to the Mitsubishi Cement Plant roughly 45 miles away. Where the rest of the money goes is yet to be seen.

Hears my point, if it only costs less than $1.00 per tire to properly dispose of them, them why is the county charging $5.00. They say they are charging the fee to curtail companies from bringing in truck loads of tires. So why not just limit the amount of time that any one person can bring in at a time? The bottom line here is that the situation is not being properly handled and we end up with these piles of tires throughout the high desert, and we are going to do something about it.

With grant money and contributions from businesses and individuals, we will open several locations around the high desert close to Phelan and El Mirage, Victorville, and Apple Valley to accept tires for free and transport those tires to the Mitsubishi Plant and to other Southern California companies that are using scrap tires to make products. This is the plan and we are in the planning process. We will accept any amount of tires from anyone regardless with no questions asked. If someone shows up with 11 tires, we are not going to turn them into the state. The idea is to offer anonymity so people will not dump the tires in the desert. Eventually we can expand this program to other areas.

Stay tuned for further developments, and if you want to help let us know. 

Mr. Green