Current tire recycling efforts make new plant unnecessary

From Jim Carroll at the Times-News:

...those in the industry say things have changed since the days when used tires were tossed in landfills or stacked in dangerous stockpiles.

Those hazardous stockpiles are disappearing quickly.

Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection officials this month said the last of what was once a pile of 6 million waste tires in Columbia County has been shredded and hauled away by recyclers.

"We cleaned up over 30 million tires in Ohio ourselves," Kendall said.

High Tread International, of Buffalo, collects many of Erie's scrap tires, and General Manager Rick Johnson said those tires are ground up for use as tire-derived fuel in industrial plants, but also for things such as doormats, flooring and building products, roofing and artificial turf. Some of it even goes into asphalt and some is used to make new tires.

"It is our experience that most of the currently generated tires in Pennsylvania and New York -- well over 90 percent -- are probably being recycled in one form or another right now," he said."

For the complete article, including information on the number of tires currently available for "burning," visit Times-News article on tire recycling.

Now, one thing that makes me really mad in all of this is the fact that Greg Rubino (in a recent Times-News article) has called opponents of the tire plant "hysterical."

(This is, itself, sexist, because "hyster" is the Greek word for "womb" so it automatically associates passionately held opinions with supposed feminine "irrationality"--in any event, it's a huge put-down and not a good choice of words. He's basically saying "you're all being a bunch of women," which should make everybody mad as hell).

So...now I'm hysterical? The Curtze owners are hysterical? Long-time friends and neighbors of mine on the East Side are hysterical? I don't think so. People have a right to express their views and they come breaing evidence, not just opinion and loud talk.

Besides, this shows you the kind of man we are dealing with in Greg Rubino. He's not at all shy about slandering the locals in order to get his way.

But regardless of etymologies, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the tire plant might be a bad idea not only from a environmental and sustainability standpoints, but also from a business-practice standpoint because they might not be able to get their hands on the 33 million tires that they want to burn (see Jim Carroll's article).

Mark my words, if they cannot get their hands on the requisite number of tires, they'll want to burn other stuff. They're not going to stand by as the furnaces sit idle...no matter what Greg Rubino might say.