Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/330408
Regulatory Fees 28 | ZZZFHGPDJFRP | Construction Equipment Distribution | June 2014 business for 30 years and have already made all the mistakes," Lafleche said. Some two million discarded tires are now arriving at the Moose Creek plant every year for transformation into sturdy barn mats. Wholesaling for $20-$40 depending on thickness, 800 new rubber mats come off the line every day. Other Ontario scrap tire processors are making athletic flooring, roofing, playground surfacing, mulch and landscap- ing bricks. The Fee Controversy Tire recycling doesn't get done without governments in Ontario and other Canadian provinces oiling the system with incentives, which are supported at the front end by fees applied to new-tire purchases. In most categories, fees are relatively modest; but in the case of off-road tires in Ontario, some categories are causing screeches of protest. Thanks to an Ontario government policy push and the benefit of what some call exorbitant fees, millions of dollars have been spent by processors such as Lafleche in building new facilities or in adding capacity to existing ones. Some 12 million new tires are sold in Ontario every year containing 90 percent recyclable materials such as synthetic and natural rubber, oil, polyester and steel. MCTR breaks down tires of every size and shape into their basic compo- nents for mat fabrication or further recycling. There's a market for almost everything in the old tire. Under the program, MCTR works with collectors, haulers, processors and product manufacturers to recycle old tires into fine crumb rubber. The crumb is then used to make more than 300,000 livestock mats a year destined for dairy and equine barns. "It's very good for the environment," said Ron Valade, who, with son Ghislain, owns Glengarry Tire, located in the next county east of Moose Creek. "Getting rid of used tires was always a problem. The new provincial fees really helped get proper disposal underway." The program prevents a lot of tires getting tossed out or burned because now customers can bring them back at no cost, says Valade, who ships close to 6,000 tires per year into recycling. Registered haulers such as Trillium, owned by MCTR, pick up tires from licensed collectors and bring them in for processing; Trillium was purchased to help guarantee supply because it's not always easy to get enough tires to meet mat production demand. Lafleche credits the Ontario Used Tires Program operated by Ontario Tire Stewardship (OTS) – both under Waste Diver- sion Ontario (WDO) – for making his expansion possible. Ontario claims to have the most extensive off-road recycling program in Canada, a fact that doesn't impress all tire buyers. That's why, as the agency in charge of tire recycling for the past five years, WDO has launched a review of its off-road fees. WDO has been controversial, especially in off-road recy- cling, because the fee applied when new tires are purchased can tally up to precisely $1,311.24 per unit for the heaviest mining tire. That tire size can cost up to $50,000 off the shelf, causing some customers to become ornery when they discover there's yet another fee to pay. Critics want modifications, especially when it comes to the fee structure for recycling off-road tires. "One of the difficulties is the number of classifications," said Craig Drury of Vermeer Canada, who is chapter presi- dent of the Ontario equipment dealers' local association. "If some of them could be combined, it would make things easier administration-wise." Cumbersome System? Companies such as Vermeer that are marketing new construction equipment have to collect recycling fees at the point of sale and remit those fees to WDO. That takes extra time and can cause confusion for staff, Drury said, adding that he'd prefer to see recycling fees built into the manufac- turing cost. Drury and others in the business don't dispute that tire users should have to pay somewhere along the line to deal with their discards. He feels, however, that the process could be made much simpler. He says, too, that the recycling program would be more acceptable to consumers if his sales staff was better equipped to explain its merits. Drury's position is supported by Rick Van Exan of Toro- mont Canada, an AED Vice President, who wonders why the onus has to fall on equipment distributors to collect recycling fees – what he calls the "tire tax." It can create hard feelings among customers, Van Exan says. He noted that distributors are being asked to collect ever-expanding fees on various components, the latest being oil filters. Other Approaches A simpler system is the name of the game with the Alberta Recycling Management Authority, which has a limited range of off-road fees that max out at only a fraction of what Ontario charges. Depending on rim size rather than weight, ´2QWDULR·V%LJ)DW)HHVµFRQWLQXHGIURPSDJH "Moose Creek Tire Recycling President Andre Lafleche explains the process to a group of visitors during a recent open house at the plant."