Tire talks gain traction

by SUSAN MANN

The province’s tire recycling organization, Ontario Tire Stewardship, is committed to working with farmers to mitigate the impacts of increased off road tire recycling fees that came in April 1.

Andrew Horsman, OTS executive director, says a meeting his organization had with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture on Monday was constructive. The two sides will meet again.

No decisions have been made yet but Horsman says they talked about options and timelines “for introducing a transition to these rates as opposed to an immediate implementation.”

Horsman says he didn’t want to specify what options they’re looking at yet because “there’s a couple of different ways we might do it and I’d like to go back and have a conversation with the government and the agricultural community to see which ones might work best for them.”

Last week, several people raised concerns about the new fees, including Ontario politicians, while the Ontario federation launched a campaign late in the week designed to fight the increase.

Horsman says the new fees are based on the tires’ weight and that “allows for a more equitable allocation of cost.” The old fee was based on rim diameter or use.

Seventy per cent of agricultural tires are 120 kilograms or less and the new fee for that weight is $47 per tire compared to the old rate of $15.29 per tire, he says. That means 70 per cent of the agricultural tire market will be charged $47 per tire or less. But for the heavier tires, the fees are slated to be $300 to $500 per tire.

Federation president Mark Wales questioned the numbers from OTS and called the increase “ridiculous. It’s hard to get the straight story because they’re downplaying how many tractor tires are going to fall into which category.”

He says most combine tires will fall in the $300 or $400 per tire range for the new fee.

Wales also notes “what this means is people are just going to go across the border and buy tires and not pay the fee.”

But Wales also described Monday’s meeting with OTS as positive. “We’re trying to look at what are some long term solutions because there are some regulatory changes we can push for that might help the process.”

Meanwhile, OTS has to go back and “take a harder look at what the fees need to be and if they can work to reduce them,” he notes.

Wales says OTS still has to generate enough money to cover the costs of recycling off-road tires. The original fees put in four years ago were too low. But ‘we just have to get to a fee structure that’s more acceptable and more graduated.”

As for what happens with the fees brought in April 1, Wales says the new fees don’t apply to tires already in businesses’ inventories. There are lots of tires in inventory but a resolution is still needed quickly before “stuff does start entering inventory or it just gets confusing as hell and dealers don’t know what to do.”

Horsman says the new rates reflect the true costs of tire recycling. In addition, the Ontario government introduced a regulation earlier this year that required OTS to set its fees based on actual recycling costs. “That regulation did not allow for a phase in,” he explains.

Nevertheless, OTS is looking at options to phase in fees and at ways to work with the agricultural community to reduce program costs overall “so that those fees come down,” he says. “That’s something we’re very committed to.”

OTS charges the fee to the first supplier of tires into Ontario, which is often the manufacturer or the equipment supplier. There are several steps between those businesses “and when that fee may show up at retail,” meaning it will be some time before farmers see the new fees showing up on their tires, he says. They’re still working quickly on a solution because they want one in place as soon as possible, he adds.

Horsman says OTS doesn’t have any control over how the first suppliers of tires into Ontario passes the fees on to their customers.

Tire recycling fees don’t apply to refurbished tires or used equipment.

The Ontario government’s policy regarding the recycling program is focused on recovering the materials the tire is made of, such as the rubber, steel and fibre, and sending them to be manufactured into new products, he says.

Currently 10 Ontario manufacturers use recycled rubber to make roof shingles, safety tiles for playgrounds, arena matting or for blending into asphalt.

A lower cost alternative would be to send the tires to a facility for use as an alternative energy source to replace coal or other fuels but currently Ontario government policy doesn’t enable OTS to truck tires to those facilities.

Horsman says one thing many farmers aren’t aware of is OTS has a program where farmers can contact the organization to clean up tire piles and illegal dumping at no cost to the landowner. Farmers can request the tires be picked up through the OTS website.

During the past three years, OTS has cleaned up more than 500,000 tires with 250,000 of them coming from agricultural and rural properties, he says. If landowners had to pay for the tires’ removal, it would have cost them more than $2 million. BF

UPDATE April 6, 2013

In a prepared statement issued by agriculture ministry staff Friday night, Premier Kathleen Wynn noted the meetings between OTS and the Federation and also said that Environment Minister Jim Bradley had met with OTS. "While we acknowledge the importance of responsibly disposing of things like tires, we also know that programs like these need to be fair to consumers," she stated in the release. BF