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June 12, 2009
Tire Stewardship Manitoba
New incentives drive timely,effective collection.
It’s time for a celebration: Tire Stewardship Manitoba (TSM) has reached its first birthday, as a not-for-profit agency formed to represent the tire retailers of Manitoba.
TSM took over the responsibility of operating the province’s scrap tire recycling program from a government-run board on April 1, 2008, which had managed it from 1995 to 2008. There have been challenges, says TSM Executive Director Brett Eckstein, but overall, it’s been a very smooth and effective transition.
“We collect an eco-fee from the tire retailers at the point of sale,” he says. “It’s a fee on all new tires that are supplied in Manitoba, so you’re either a first seller or first importer. There are no manufacturers in Manitoba, so it works better from our standpoint.”
Responsible for all tires
The fee starts at $4.50 and varies by tire type, reaching $75 for large OTR tires, with all money remitted to TSM. “We’re responsible for all tires and tubes in Manitoba,” Eckstein says. “Anything on a motorized vehicle, on- or off-road, with the exemption of personal mobility aids, such as motorized scooters.”
Registered processors either collect or contract collection of the scrap tires. Two incentives are paid to processors: when tires are collected or delivered, and when they’re processed or manufactured into other products. Under the government program, processors were only paid upon proof of sale of a recycled product.
“We’ve split that to provide an incentive to collect,” Eckstein says. “This helps improve collection in those areas which have been historically underserviced, such as some of our more remote rural areas, by paying a separate fee that encourages collection on a timely basis. Our goal is to keep tires off the landscape and out of retailers’ yards, because they pose a fire hazard and other environmental and human health risks, such as mosquitoes.”
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A successful program
The program is successful: last year, 95% of all tires collected were recycled within the province into other products, such as aggregate, crumb, molded products, or blast mats. The remaining 5% was shipped outside the province for tire-derived fuel, “but that was program residual that can’t be easily handled by some of our processors,” Eckstein says. These were mainly oversized OTR tires; there aren’t enough of them to justify the expense of buying the big shredders needed to handle them.
One major accomplishment is that a backlog of 12,000 tires from the government program has been cleaned up. “These were OTR tires, and because they were not levied, they had accumulated over the years,” Eckstein says. “The province occasionally funded some pickups, but they did that with surplus funds, and that’s what got the program in trouble financially. When we made the transition, the government agreed that they would assist us financially in dealing with the inventory. The backlog has been cleaned up, and now we’re removing the flow on an annual basis.”
High value to consumers
Eckstein believes that consumers are pleased with the program, especially since almost all of the tires are processed within the province, creating jobs and economic development. “We’ve made some significant improvements with how we’re managing tires, we’ve done some cleanup, and now those tires are being stored appropriately and collected on a more timely basis,” he says. “There are some challenges that lie ahead, and we’re working with our processors to improve collection province-wide. We’re seeing a more systematic approach to collecting tires in Manitoba and processing them without any significant backlog. I think the public is getting very high value for what they’re being asked to contribute.”
www.tirestewardshipmb.ca
Photo : Marie-Josée Rousseau
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Jil McIntosh