Nonmetallics

A report by the Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA) finds that nearly 87 percent of disposed tires are put to a new use each year. In 1990, only 11 percent of scrap tires found their way to a consuming market.

As consuming markets have strengthened, the number of tires sitting in stockpiles has declined. More than 1 billion scrap tires were stockpiled in 1990, while 275 million tires were stockpiled in 2003. In 2005, the number of tires in stockpiles declined to 188 million.

RMA has ranked states by their overall performance in dealing with scrap tire issues, noting how the states have improved since the previous scrap tire report in 2003. South Carolina, North Carolina and Maine lead the nation in the association’s rankings, which are based on the percent of tires going to end use markets, the number of stockpiled tires, the stockpiled tires per capita, the number of tires land-disposed and the percent of the number of tires/per capita land-disposed in 2005.

Texas, Alabama, Michigan and Ohio came out on top in terms of improving the scrap tire situation within their borders in 2005 compared to 2003.

"Tire manufacturers have been working hard for 16 years to promote environmentally and economically sound solutions to reduce scrap tire waste," Michael Blumenthal, RMA senior technical director, says. "Additionally, states’ scrap tire cleanup laws and regulations and market development efforts have substantially reduced the nation’s scrap tire piles."

The full Rubber Manufacturers Association report is available from Recycling Today’s Web site at www.recyclingtoday.com/news/images/rmareport.pdf.