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Bill Vincent, CEO of Colt Inc. says Louisiana is the best state for a tire recycler to be, thanks to progressive end market reimbursement program.

“The tire dealers are happy. The processors are happy. The transporters are happy. Everybody that is involved in the tire recycling business in Louisiana is tickled to death,” Vincent says. “It’s the only program in the country, to my knowledge, that solves every aspect of the scrap tire problem.”

Louisiana pays tire processors $150 per ton of tires recycled, with payments distributed when the product is marketed. Tire dealers throughout the state collect a user fee of $2 from the sale of a tire, with 75 percent of the funds going to market development, Vincent says. The state also has licked the problem of illegal stockpiles, he says, thanks to the way the program is managed.

“In 20 years, I haven’t seen a program work that the government wasn’t involved in,” Vincent says, “and I’m not a government person.”

Vincent says Louisiana’s program works because it makes illegal dumping of tires by unscrupulous tire jockeys unprofitable. “The tire jockey is still in the loop. He picks up the tire at the tire dealer, but there is no money exchanged,” Vincent says. “He doesn’t get the money for those tires until he delivers them to a processing facility.”

Vincent says Louisiana used a common sense approach in designing its scrap tire management program. “The agencies in most states are saddled with taking care of this problem,” he says, “but they are never given enough money to do it. What they end up doing is they collect money and they take care of the back end…illegal tire dumps. They measure the success of their programs by how many piles of tires they clean up. If you don’t get your current generated tires under control, then you will continue to have stockpiles,” Vincent says.

Vincent says that he has rubber for 20 percent of the markets that are available to him, with product going into civil engineering and fuel applications.

“In our opinion,” he says, “the thing that makes markets happen is strong processors. Strong processors are paid the money that they need to be paid in order to collect, process and market a tire.” Vincent says he thinks processors should be left to determine end market viability, because they know the capabilities of their equipment.

“We have to find a way to get the money that’s in the pipeline to the processors, so that they can invest in the equipment, so that they can make the products for the higher end markets,” he says. “Everybody seems to think that we want to take it [the rubber] to the lowest end for the least amount of money. In fact, when we’re taking it to the lowest end, it’s a matter of survival for us,” Vincent says. “It’s biding time for the higher end markets to happen.”

Vincent adds that he thinks a user fee will remain a necessity. “They keep saying that it is a tax, it’s a subsidy. It’s nothing but a fee for services rendered, just like the trash. It’s just that simple,” he says.

“With the concept that we have here in Louisiana, there would not be a problem in the United States with scrap tires,” Vincent says. “There are enough markets out there now with civil engineering that we can get rid of material every day. The higher end markets will happen, then we can put the equipment in and reach those markets.”