Arkansas charges as much as twice what nearby states do to manage waste tires but has significantly worse outcomes than those states, a state representative told legislators last week.
A 2014 study by master's students in public administration at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock that was prepared for the Central Arkansas Inter-District Waste Tire Management Program and mentioned to legislators last week showed that the state has room to grow in managing its tire program, said Rep. Lanny Fite, R-Benton. Fite was on the program board for 16 years during his tenure as Saline County judge.
While disposing of tires in landfills is legal in some places, officials consider it less desirable than repurposing those tires for fuel, asphalt and other uses.
Arkansas collects a $2 fee on every tire sold at retail facilities to fund its waste-tire programs. According to the report, the state's landfills took in 44 percent of the 2.7 million waste tires processed in 2012, while 56 percent were made into other products.
In contrast, Alabama collects a $1 fee on the sale of new tires to fund a "manifest system," which regulates tires from the point of sale to disposal. That state deposited only 7 percent of its 5 million waste tires in 2012 into landfills and converted most of the rest to fuel and other products, according to the report.
Kentucky collects a $1 fee on new tires to pay for tire management and deposited only 13 percent of waste tires into landfills, while repurposing the rest of its 4.2 million tires processed in 2012.
Mississippi collects $1 for each new tire to fund its program and also allows residents and businesses producing 10 or fewer waste tires per week to use free public collection sites. Mississippi deposited 5 percent of its 3 million waste tires in 2011 into landfills and repurposed the rest, the report said.
In Arkansas, funds for waste-tire management go to 10 districts that all manage the tires differently.
Many districts repurpose them for fuel, but not all districts have the same access to proper facilities or consider transporting the used tires affordable, Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Director Becky Keogh said.
"Some consider it more economical to just place the tire in the landfill," Keogh said.
Another problem is that some dealers collect used tires with the intention of selling them, Keogh said. If they can't sell them, they have to pay $2 to get the tire processed again for disposal. Many of them choose not to pay that fee and instead dump tires illegally, she said.
Fite said he readily can name three illegal dump sites with thousands of tires: one in Faulkner County where a man leaves his gate open for the drop-off; another in Ozark; and one in Pulaski County off Pitts Road that was the site of a large fire this year.
"It's going to cost you a lot more to clean it up than what you get when you prosecute them," Fite said. "The thing we've got to do is stop it from happening."
Fite said the state needs to put funding from waste tires toward a manifest system or requirements for a bill of lading to track larger shipments of tires. He's also concerned that supervision and reporting on how waste-tire funds are spent is not adequate. He said he hopes to see a change in the 2017 legislative session.
The discrepancy between the apparent effectiveness of Arkansas and neighboring states' waste-tire programs will be taken up at a Public Health, Welfare and Labor committee meeting Dec. 7.
Fite is not on the committee but spoke before it last week regarding the waste-tire program. He was asked to compile the information he gave the committee.
Metro on 11/22/2015