Windsor tire shops warn of growing backlog as pickup delays continue

Windsor tire shops warn of a growing backlog of used tires as pickup delays continue. CTV Windsor’s Chris Campbell reports.

Used tires are piling up at auto repair shops across Windsor-Essex as businesses say changes to Ontario’s recycling system have left them waiting months for pickups.

At Justin’s Auto Repair in east Windsor, owner Justin Lapointe points to a stack of more than 100 discarded tires taking up a section of his parking lot.

“They’ve been piling up there for a couple months now,” Lapointe said in an interview Monday. “The last time they were picked up was, I believe, November, possibly even October.”

Lapointe said his shop normally relies on scheduled collections arranged through tire distributors and haulers, but those pickups have largely stopped.

“The companies that are responsible for picking the tires up are not picking them up,” he said. “I’ve never seen an issue before.”

Under Ontario rules, customers pay an environmental disposal fee – typically around five dollars per tire – at the time of purchase to cover the cost of recycling.

“Every tire sold gets charged an average about $5 per tire,” Lapointe explained. “And that is responsible for the waste of the tires and making sure they don’t wind up in the landfills.”

But he believes recent program changes have disrupted the system.

“Back in January 2025, they mandated the companies who pick up the tires to only pick up 65 per cent of the tires versus the 85 per cent in the past,” Lapointe said. “Once they met their quota for last year, they stopped picking tires up. And that has caused a backlog of tires.”

The growing stockpiles are creating operational headaches and mounting concern.

“That’s now taking away valuable parking spots,” he said. “Other businesses, small businesses may not have that luxury, and they might be jammed right up with tires.”

Lapointe said he has tried repeatedly to find solutions, calling hotlines and contacting collection companies, but with little success.

“I’ve left messages, I’ve sent emails. I’ve got no response from these companies,” he stated. “One even said, ‘we will contact you back in the next few weeks or a couple months,’ and that’s not helping my problem.”

He worries that the situation could eventually raise safety or insurance concerns.

“If they see this big, gigantic tire pile, I’m sure they’re going to have an issue with that,” he said.

‘A huge backlog’

The problem isn’t limited to one shop. Tammy Meyer, co-owner of Heritage Tire on Tecumseh Road East, said her business has faced similar delays.

“We’ve had a huge backlog in scrap tire pickup, which started about the last quarter of 2025, and it’s rolled over into 2026,” Meyer said.

“The main issue is that the government put a cap on the haulers and the collectors. It’s my understanding it went from an 85 per cent rate to a 65 per cent rate in 2025.”

Meyer said many collectors reached that limit by mid-year.

“Most of the haulers and collectors maxed out at around July or August, so then no one was getting their scrap tires picked up, which caused a huge backlog,” she said. “So we’re starting 2026 kind of behind the eight ball.”

At one point, she said, hundreds of tires were stored on site.

“We had 200 to 300 scrap tires sitting here, which creates a mess,” Meyer said. “We’ve had problems with rodents being in there. We’re infringing on bylaw issues and, not to mention, fire hazard too.”

Meyer said pickups have slowly resumed – her shop had tires collected Monday morning – but the system is still struggling to catch up.

“It is slowly getting better, but we started out 2026 with a huge backlog from 2025,” she said.

She believes the solution is straightforward.

“We need to get rid of that 65 per cent cap,” Meyer said. “It has to go. It’s not working.”

Province acknowledges delays

In a statement to CTV News, Windsor-Tecumseh MPP Andrew Dowie said he is aware of the concerns.

“I’m aware of the issues raised by our local auto and tire centres regarding the collection and disposal of used tires,” Dowie said. “I have escalated those concerns to the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks.”

Dowie said the ministry is working with the Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority (RPRA), the agency that oversees Ontario’s producer-responsibility recycling framework, “to address these disruptions to the collection and processing of end-of-life tires.”

Under that framework, tire producers and their contracted organizations are responsible for ensuring used tires are collected and recycled.

Lapointe said he hopes the province steps in quickly.

“I would like to see it go back to the way it was,” he said. “The government needs to help out with this problem and allow these companies to essentially make more money then, which means pick up more tires.”

He plans to keep pressing for answers.

“I’ve got to keep trying to contact these companies to see if someone will answer my calls,” Lapointe said. “I’m getting very frustrated.”

CTV News reached out to the Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority for comment or an interview but have not received a response by the time this article was published.