THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 7, 1996 TAG: 9601070100
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
The state hopes a new financial incentive will help reduce the number of tire dumps that litter the Virginia landscape.
The Virginia Waste Management Board voted to increase from $30 to $50 a ton the state-paid reimbursement for taking tires from the 730 illegal waste piles that range in size from 100 tires to 5 million.
``We hope this is the incentive to get people in the woods to start cleaning those piles up,'' said R. Allan Lassiter Jr., manager of Virginia's waste tire program.
The change will go into effect April 1.
Virginia, like many other states, has struggled for years to find a way to clean up illegal tire dumps. The dumps are ugly and dangerous. They harbor mosquitoes and can burst into long-burning fires.
The tire disposal program started in December 1994 to provide payments to businesses such as recyclers, shredders and tire-burning power plants that accept waste tires.
Consumers provide the money by paying a 50-cent tax on each new tire.
A hauler, called a ``tire jockey,'' takes old tires from dealers to the disposal site. With the tire-disposal business getting an increased state payment, it can charge the tire jockey less, and the jockey can charge the dealer less.
Thursday's action replaces the $30-per-ton reimbursement with a two-tiered payment. Businesses that accept tires from illegal dumps get $50 per ton, while those that take tires from dealers get $22.50 a ton.
That should reduce the incentive for illegal dumping, Lassiter said, while providing more incentive for people to clean up old tire dumps.
Tire program workers, following a paper trail that certifies the origin of tires, will ensure that tires drawing the bigger payments do, in fact, come from dumps, Lassiter said.
Chris Kuhn, a New Kent County businessman, said the program is misguided.
Kuhn owns Virginia Recycling Corp., which buys old tires and sells shredded tire chips for boiler fuel.
Kuhn criticized the program for reimbursing companies that take tires, shred them and use the parts to cover trash in landfills.
``They can dump it just like trash and get paid by the consumer,'' Kuhn said.
Kuhn, who doesn't get the reimbursement, said the payments reward competitors who don't put the tires to beneficial uses such as recycling.
One of those competitors disagreed. Matt Brownlee is regional sales manager for Resource Products Inc., an affiliate of Atlantic Waste Disposal, which runs a commercial landfill in Sussex County.
Resource Products shreds tires to cover trash in the landfill. The tire parts create spaces underground that help water and air get to the trash and assist in decomposition, Brownlee said. That produces methane gas, which the company plans to sell or use to make power, Brownlee said.
``Our tires are used beneficially,'' Brownlee said. by CNB