Like most people in the industry, Spencer Grabinsky at Top Tier Wheels in Barrie is dealing with issues affecting tire pick up and recycling. He says he was once able to get his tires collected weekly. Not anymore and he’s running out of room to store them “Honestly it just comes down to space. We are limited – we are trying to do as best as we can keep everything organized and keep customers rolling - but yeah, it just comes down to space at the end of the day,” said Grabinsky. The Ontario Tire Dealers’ Association says the reason behind the slow down in tire recycling is a direct result of changes made to how much producers had to collect and recycle in Ontario. Last year, it was 85% of a company’s tires sold in the province. “Effectively today, producers are required to collect and recycle or what we call manage 65% of the tires they bring into the province based on the weight of the tire,” said Adam Moffatt, executive director of the Ontario Tire Dealers’ Association. The Tire Dealers’ Association says a decline in collection sites is also a major factor. With fewer pick ups and less locations to recycle, many shops are forced to stockpile like this. So are many local landfills. “The company’s that are required to remove the tires are now reaching their quotas very early in the year which is leaving a back log,” said Rob McCullough director of solid waste at the County of Simcoe. The Simcoe County has about 30,000 old and used tires scattered at its eight local landfills and it’s becoming a growing concern. “We’ve had to segregate the tires like the pile beside me because our bunkers are not large enough to accommodate the number of tires that are coming in given there’s next to no collections of them,” said McCullough. Staff have been forced to scatter the tires around the landfill site as a safety precaution in case of a fire. In Barrie there are about 4,200 tires at the city’s land fill. The fire chief says so far, so good on the tire count and feels the city has done a good job of separating the tires in case of a fire. “Tire fires are generally difficult to get started they are also difficult to put out once they get started. So, we have them all in bins properly separated as per the Ontario Fire Code and we make sure we are ready to respond, and they’ll be safe when we get there,” said Barrie Fire Chief Kevin White. Local auto shop owners say they don’t expect this issue to go away any time soon suggesting they are running out of space to store them.
