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What's Cooking in Tire Recycling Legislation

At at time when mainstream recycling legislation is at an all time low, tire recycling legislation showed well with 18 legislative introductions in 1998.

California topped the list with four bills, one of which was signed into law in August (see story p. 1). AB 2181 - the Firestone bill as it is known, deals with fines and enforcement measures designed to discourage tire dumping and put some teeth in tire storage rules.

But the lifeline in Califoria's waste tire program remains undecided. The state's 25 cent per tire fee is set to expire June 30, 1999. In the last days of the state's two year legislative session, AB 117 which would extend the fee to January 1, 2001 passed both houses and was sent to the governor for signing. Two other bills addresssing permits and budget issue are also on the governor's desk.

Arizona lawmakers moved to encourage mroe tire recycling wiht passage of HB 2503 early in 1998. The bill provides incentives for tire recycling an authorizes formation of a committee to review the state's current methods of tire disposal.

Market encouragement appears to be the intent of Oklahoma's actions on scrap tires in 1998. The state enacted SB 992 which provides for tax credits for waste tire recycling and SB 1218 authorizing compensation for energy recovery processing.

Colorado also tweaked its tire rules on the market side. New law HB 1176 directs local agencies to use the money fromt he waste tire recycling development cash fund to provide partial reimbursement to waste tire processors and end users.

One thing is clear from this legislative sampling - the landscape for tire recycling initiatives has changed since the early 1990's. Then, states were more concerned with controlling "the scrap tire problem" than laying the ground work for encouraging the use of tires and tire-derived materials in beneficial projects, programs and products. As a reuslt they passed laws that dealt with regualting the managemetn of scrap tires in record numbers up until the mid-ninties.

It's a long way to have come and with at least 10 states projecting introduction of tire bills in 1999, there's still a long way to go in creating a legislative environment that allows industry to grow markets while engerdering responsible scrap tire management.

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