Earlier this month, Connecticut officials hosted a Tire Stewardship Dialogue Meeting with attendees including state and local governments across the nation to discuss applying Extended Producer Responsibility to tires.
The position of the Connecticut and Vermont officials at the end of the meeting was that they had heard the opposition and concerns from manufacturers, recyclers, other state environmental agencies, Ontario Tire Stewardship, and other attendees, but still hold that EPR will reduce the use of tire derived fuel (TDF) without distorting markets and eliminate illegal dumping though free collection without necessitating government spending on oversight or enforcement.
Vermont officials began the meeting by announcing the introduction of a tire EPR bill (Vermont HB 36) that same day and Connecticut has a publically available "legislative proposal" including a CT tire EPR bill (2.5 MB PDF; tire EPR section on pages 48 to 53). On a related note, there have been several bills introduced that would place a temporary ban or moratorium on state contracts for synthetic turf and require a state study of any potential health or environmental risks, with bills in California (California SB 47); New York (New York AB 856, AB 1634, and SB 1735), and Virginia (Virginia HB 2317). You can track the status of the bills with ISRI's State Legislative Tracking System, available from ISRI's State Policy page (member login required to access the link).
More than 160 people registered for the conference, with the majority being state and local government officials and related councils and NGOs. Almost every party that spoke - outside of the officials from CT, VT, and PSI - was either opposed to an EPR tire program or thought that real and extensive dialogue would be necessary to avoid harming recycling. These speakers generally agreed that the most obvious and successful solutions would be enforcement of existing requirements, development of permitting and other regulations that keep track of the tire flow and require sureties from all players, and the encouragement of greater demand in new and existing non-TDF markets (as opposed to mandated production of certain materials). Notably, regulators from Pennsylvania and other states praised the efforts of recyclers and manufacturers in cleaning up piles and pointed out that success in their states had come from aggressive regulation and enforcement on haulers and other parts of the chain, not just recyclers.
While the CT and VT officials were not swayed on EPR, they did recognize the message that permitting of all parties, tracking, and enforcement were vital. However, they said there was no money for enforcement and that requesting such or legislating the return of CT's state tire fee (repealed in '97) were non-starters. Three general concerns for tire programs - supposedly larger than the EPR debate, but all tying back in during discussions - were identified during the meeting: illegal dumping, promotion of higher-use markets, and the sustainability of funding for recycling and for government regulation and oversight.
However, there was confusion from many attendees over the extent of the problem in CT. Officials had no data on illegal dumping or large tire piles apart from 14,000 tires picked up by the CT DoT from January to September of 2014 (compared to an annual in-state market of approximately 3.4 million), and had no plans to collect or share such data between departments. Anecdotal stories were given and small scale cleanup efforts by local groups were cited, but the only concrete examples of large piles found in CT had been cleared. CT currently only requires permits and bonds from recyclers, has no manifest or other tracking system to ensure that tires make it from the generator to the processor, and state officials admitted that they had not enforced when large-scale violations were discovered in the past. When CT officials challenged their ability to track and enforce shipments, Mark Rannie of Emanuel Tire, ISRI's Tire Division Chair, cited Virginia's Waste Tire Certificate as a now industry-managed tracking system that allows a state auditor to check the movement of tires while avoiding reporting to the state.