‘Makes no sense’: Shercom dismayed new tire recycling contract awarded to Ontario company

Shercom Industries president Shane Olson is still trying to understand why the provincial tire recycling regulator signed an agreement with an Ontario company to be the northern processor for scrap tires.

“This makes no sense,” Olson said Monday. “This is not about stewardship. This is about the wrong direction and the lack of courage to correct it.”

On Friday, the Tire Stewardship of Saskatchewan (TSS), which is responsible for recycling used tires in the province, struck a deal with Emterra Tire Recycling Ltd. to become the province’s second processor, covering the northern half of the province.

The Ontario-based company will develop a scrap tire processing facility near Saskatoon and begin accepting tires by “mid-2026,” according to the announcement.

The agreement is the latest development in a multi-year saga that has seen Shercom effectively go from holding a monopoly as the province’s only used tire recycler to being shut out of the process entirely.

“And that has come at the detriment of the community, the economy, and of course, the environment,” Olson said.

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The TSS began exploring the idea of opening a second processing plant in 2021. It was ultimately awarded to American-based Crumb Rubber Manufacturers Co. (CRM) in December of 2022, with a new plant in Moose Jaw to handle the southern part of the province.

Shercom subsequently laid off dozens of workers after negotiations with TSS failed in the months that followed and it opted to shut its recycling plant down.

“I think what you’re seeing play out is a company that is upset that they’ve lost their monopoly,” TSS CEO Stevyn Arnt said in a May 2023 interview with CTV News, after the dispute with Shercom came to light.

Olson, while standing in front of a $20 million recycling plant Shercom rebuilt in 2017 after a tire fire burned its old one down, said rather than having a Saskatchewan company recycle tires and bring value-added manufacturing to the market, Saskatchewan’s used tires will continue to be shipped elsewhere with the economic spinoff being felt in those jurisdictions.

The Saskatchewan NDP criticized the province and the Ministry of Environment, which approved the regulator’s decision, for appearing to support Saskatchewan businesses and then doing the opposite.

“Our tires are going to go to California, they’re going to go to Ontario, they’re going to go to those plants. They’re going to help promote those jobs — and the profits attached to these contracts are also leaving this province,” said Hugh Gordon, the NDP’s critic for Highways and Infrastructure.

Olson says the agreement with CRM for the southern district was ultimately not fulfilled, and the company withdrew in April 2025. He said he’s disappointed the process continued behind closed doors and was never reopened.

With no tire recycler in the province since Shercom’s shutdown, scrap tires have been piling up at a yard in Clavet.

“But not only is that pile growing or is now shut down, the supply chain of tires has pushed that backlog all the way back onto the retailers,” Olson said.

“Anybody can drive by a tire store, and they’ll see a pile of tires. Some retailers have two, three, four semi loads of tires.”

Throughout all of this, Olson said Shercom’s attempts to find a solution or meet with the TSS or the province have gone unanswered.

Last November, the company filed a statement of claim at Saskatoon Court of King’s Bench, seeking at least $10 million in damages against the Government of Saskatchewan, the Tire Stewardship of Saskatchewan (TSS) and its CEO.

The statement of claim argues Shercom was unfairly excluded from a request for proposals to award a second tire recycler, further claiming the RFP allegedly said it was seeking a “second processor” and not a “second location.” Shercom thought it was excluded from the process, according to the lawsuit.

None of the allegations have been proven in court, however, Olson said Friday’s announcement “legitimizes” Shercom’s claim.