I had a story in the Toronto Star this week that, while researching it, really got me a bit angry. The piece is about an Ontario-based company called Recovery Technologies that recycles vehicle tires by processing them into tiny bits that can be used as fake dirt on sports fields, mixed with asphalt or blended with other materials to make car parts. Recovery has for years used a proprietary process based on liquid nitrogen, which is used to freeze the rubber so it can be hammered and literally shattered into pieces. Pretty cool, if you’ll excuse the pun.

So what got me angry? I learned that Recovery is having a difficult time getting enough tires because, well, used tire collectors are shipping them to New York State and Michigan where they can be burned as fuel. Turns out that Recovery’s business model understandably depends on getting a tipping fee for taking the tires, but as more and more jurisdictions permit the idea of so-called tire derived fuels, the tipping fee is rapidly shrinking to zero. No surprises there — a cement company would be more than happy to take the tires for free rather than pay for a conventional fuel, such as coal or oil.

Now, there’s an argument that tires are cleaner to burn than coal and oil and provide more energy content than coal, so what’s the harm in burning tires if they replaced fossil fuels that would otherwise be burned? It’s a valid argument, but it doesn’t send a good signal to industries that are encouraged to embrace recycling but at the same time are undermined by the market they aim to be helping. Recovery wants the Ontario government to move forward on promises to establish tire recycling legislation that would make it mandatory for recycling and forbid both the burning of tires as fuel in Ontario and the exporting of tires so they can be used as fuel in other jurisdictions.

It’s a reasonable request, and one that will help companies like Recovery collect a fair tipping fee for the service they’re providing. Ontario in particular, a province that has mandated the phase-out of coal fired generation, should be sensitive to this issue. If we’re going to go down the path of burning tires, then we might as well abandon our plastic recycling programs and burn empty yogurt containers and water bottles as fuel. It’s hard to see how we can justify one but strive to support the other.

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