Louisiana Increases Tire Fee

Increased revenue earmarked to pay for growing amount of waste.

Louisiana lawmakers passed Louisiana HB 142 earlier this year increasing the waste tire fee collected on the sale of passenger / light truck / small farm service tires from $2.00 per tire to $2.25 per tire, effective Oct. 1, 2018 through July 31, 2022.

The well-attended conference sponsored by the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) provided updates on the state of tire recycling in California, as well as the latest scrap tire management figures and trends for the U.S. and Europe. Presenters also talked about market and product development initiatives emerging in California and nationwide spurred by manufacturer and consumer interest in sustainable material recycling.

“As Louisians buy a new set of tires they’ll pay two dollars and twenty-five cents a tire. That goes into a waste tire fund that the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) uses to pay processors,” DEQ Secretary Chuck Brown said in an interview last month.

Under Louisiana’s Waste Tire Program, processors are reimbursed on a per pound basis for tire material they process and recycle to an approved end-use.

DEQ officials say the growing number of waste tires in urban centers is creating a pollution problem, and the increased fees will provide funding to cleaning and processing illegally dumped tires.

Brown cited an example in Orleans Parish where last year about 20,000 tires were illegally dumped. “This year it was 30,000, so we’ve done surveillance, and arrested people,” he said.

Brown said DEQ is also working with local governments to make sure the tires get collected.

© Scrap Tire News, November 2018