THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 14, 1994 TAG: 9411140051
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
An advisory panel has recommended to the state Waste Management Board a program that would emphasize the burning of old tires as a means of recycling.
Some panel members who opposed the recommendation said the group was unduly influenced by panel members whose business is the burning of tires.
``How did this come about? It came about the way that things come about at all levels of government - lobbying,'' Pat Therrien, a member of the advisory committee and the Appalachian Regional Recycling Consortium, told The Daily Progress of Charlottesville. ``It came about by lobbying by people interested in promoting the concept that the only way to deal with the problem is burning.''
Five of the 20 members of the panel either use tires for fuel or hope to in the future.
Joe Loncoski, a Virginia Power Co. executive on the panel, called tire burning the best solution to the problem, superior even to making new products out of the tires.
``If you honestly and truly want to get rid of the tires you dispose, you have to make it a fuel,'' Loncoski said. ``There are only so many sneakers you can make, and you have to dispose of those eventually anyway.''
The recommendation, which defines who is eligible for money from the $6.3 million Waste Tire Trust Fund, would put a premium on burning. Businesses burning tires would get up to $30 for every ton of tires they burn.
Other recycling methods, such as using the tires in construction projects, would receive around $15 a ton. According to the recommendation, a company would have to use 10,000 tires, equal to 100 tons, to be eligible for reimbursement.
The tire fund was created in 1990, when Virginia began levying a 50-cent tax on all new tires sold. The fund now takes in about $2 million a year, according to the state Department of Environmental Quality. The advisory committee was created in 1993 to recommend a means of dispensing the money in a way that would encourage the re-use of scrap tires.
Virginia currently has an estimated 17.4 million used tires available for recycling.
Some companies, such as Virginia Power, are looking for an economical way to use the old tires as a fuel source.
``With some subsidy, it might be possible,'' Loncoski said.
Others, such as the Southeast Public Service Authority, already burn old tires to produce power.
David Horne, an authority official and panel member, said the authority would receive a maximum of $108,000 in tire fund money if it burned as many tires as it did last year - 3,600 tons. The authority charges people 75 cents to bring tires to its landfill, then burns the tires to create energy it sells to the Navy. The tire fund reimbursement would help make ends meet, he said.
``We're counting on it to provide us a source of revenue to help us buy a new shredder,'' Horne said.
Loncoski and Horne said tires burn cleaner than coal if the burning is done properly, and data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency supports that assertion.
Among those objecting to the recommendation's emphasis on burning was Lauria Royse, co-director of the Yellow Mountain Institute in Batesville.
``They (tire burners) all got a piece of the action,'' Royse said. ``They just didn't leave enough for poor people.''
KEYWORDS: TIRES RECYCLING by CNB