ISRI TIRE SUMMIT: Classified Information

Outside observers who reason that scrap tires are relatively uniform could learn otherwise from Troy Hess, current president of the ISRI Scrap Tire Chapter and vice president of Mahantango Enterprises Inc., Liverpool, Pa.

Hess, who has been working both on behalf of ISRI and his company to help set up a classifying system for companies involved in the collection and processing of scrap tires, was one of three presenters on the topic at the 2007 ISRI Scrap Tire Summit.

The system Hess is using includes classifications such as Clean Passenger Tires, Dirty Passenger Tires and Other Passenger Tires (contaminated and burned), as well as Radial Truck Tires and Bias-ply Truck Tires. Most of these classifications also have prepared or unprepared sub-classifications.

Tire hauler Bill Cook of Wholesale Tire Co., Clifton Forge, Tenn., reminded processors that domestic markets still exist to repair and re-sell used tires. “I see a lot of tires thrown onto [shredder] conveyor belts that don’t have much more wrong with them than a nail in them,” he commented. “A lot of these can be repaired.”

Cook’s company classifies tires by their condition and, to some extent, by the date they were manufactured. He remarked, though, that “the date is not everything; some good, repairable tires have just been in storage for awhile.”

Anne Evans of EER Limted, Hebron, Conn., gave an overview of the used tire export market. She noted that Central and South America were the most common destinations for tire exporters in the United States.

The most active used tire export regions are near the ports of Southern California, South Florida, the Gulf Coast and the corridor from Boston to Baltimore. The cost of inland freight can mean that bringing in tires from very far away from these ports can be cost-ineffective.

Evans estimated that some 15 percent of the tires that a scrap tire processor handles could be classified as repairable or re-sellable and could be culled from the processing line.

The ISRI Tire Recycling Business Summit took place in mid-September at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in Rosemont, Ill.