TIRE DERIVED FUEL ISSUES SUMMARY
o West Valley Citizens' Air Watch o 3/99 o yojo@batnet.com

o THE CANCER RATE GOES UP. Burning of tires for fuel (TDF) as compared to coal releases a substantial amount of additional toxic pollutants into the air creating a larger adverse health impact. Involuntary exposure to these emissions is totally avoidable because cement kilns standard operating procedures do not require tire burning.
o The Sierra Club along with all other environmental organizations call for, in order of priority: REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE -- this is the solution to used tires. All of these goals can now or soon be accomplished with vehicle tires. Burning tires for fuel is a net loss of energy and materials -- burning can never be construed as recycling.


TIRE BURNING SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASES HAZARDOUS EMISSIONS
Because Kaiser is already the largest point source air polluter in Santa Clara County, Kaiser's claimed increases as percentages appear deceptively small. Kaiser's tire burning will release large quantities of additional pollutants. The following compounds increase with TDF: benzene, dioxins, PCBs, PAHs, hexavalent chromium, copper, lead, manganese, mercury, zinc NOx and PM10. (BAAQMD) Also see enclosed (or attached) graphs and charts. The most deadly by-product of burning dirty fuels -- Dioxin -- increased by 1/3 when tires were added to the coal normally used.


HEALTH ISSUES
"(Often there are ) underlying assumptions (made) that current air quality standards may be acceptable, but we know that they really are not safe."  "The chemical soup of air emissions from cement kilns burning tires can not be judged to be safe until we know more about the mix of carcinogens, mutagens, teratogens, and endorcrine disruptors, because who wants to have their babies and families be tested as guinea pigs." [Dr. Neil Carman]


Background cancer, asthma, and health incidence rates make it difficult to directly determine the health effects of tire burning. Only by conducting the "test" on the whole population and putting generations of people at risk will the true numbers even start to become known. This is unnecessary.  There is already abundant data that prove the harmful effects of the various components of tire burning pollution. It is further proven there is no "safe" level for many of these components, and it can be reasonably expected to incur significant loss of health and life as a result of using TDF at Kaiser. Given that our urban environment already has a severe toxic burden, and given that the sole benefit of using TDF is increased Kaiser profitability, this misuse of tires constitutes an involuntary increased health risk that is totally unjustified and unacceptable.


ALTERNATIVES TO BURNING TIRES ABOUND, AND ARE RAPIDLY GROWING IN NUMBER, FEASIBILITY AND SOPHISTICATION.
The exponentially growing reduce, reuse and recycling industries are not only making it possible to use up all the used tires, but remarkably, there is now a competition between those who want to burn tires for fuel and those who want to use the tires in true recycling industries. We personally have seen this competition taking place at a crumb rubber conference recently.


MONETARY INCENTIVES TO BURN TDF
By its own numbers, Kaiser would enjoy around $750,000 in increased profits every year by burning tires. Kaiser has a right to pursue profits, but not at the expense of the community and the environment. Although Kaiser's motivation is clear, the opponents to tire burning will not profit monetarily in any way from the thousands of hours they have donated to stop tire burning. Instead, they are motivated only by the clear evidence that tire burning will hurt their health and environment.


REDUCE o REUSE o RECYCLE

A. REDUCE


o Source Reduction by encouraging longer lasting tires is a key issue.
o In 1999, Ford Windstars are using Michelin tires which use 5% recycled rubber. Michelin's tests show that they could use 10% used tire rubber material in new tires and get the same results -- performance and lasting time same as 100% new rubber material. If all tire manufacturers did this, this alone would reduce the amount of used tires by millions of tires per year.


B. REUSE


o 60% of the material in a tire is in the casing.
o Retreaded tires reuse the tire casing.
o A quality tire can be retreaded an average of three times thus reducing the tire disposal issue by up to 75%.
o Truck, bus, aircraft and off-road tires are regularly retreaded some as many as 10-12 times.
o Auto and light trucks make up 80% of tire usage, but only 10% are retreaded. This shows another potential for drastically reducing the number of used tires using the new retreading technology.
o The US Postal Service has increased the use of retreaded tires 118% since 1992


C. RECYCLE


o There is a booming growth in the industry which recycles old tires into new rubberized products. "Rubberized asphalt has the potential to use all the scrap tires in the State in the future." California Integrated Waste Management Board, Annual Report, 1992. Los Angeles is currently using Rubberized Asphalt Concrete (RAC) in a very successful program on its roads.
o There is now a growing competition for using used tires. For example a tire recycling company in California states that, "we need about 5 million tires (for their proposed recycling plant using a new process) if we can only get 2 million . . .," that would jeopardize our project..." All used tires generated in California could be recycled in the true meaning of the word.
o Ford Motor Company will soon be using 20 % recycled rubber in their molded parts instead of plastic in their cars.



WEST VALLEY CITIZEN'S AIR WATCH yojo@batnet.com


3/99