Tire Recycler Receives Go-Ahead from Indiana Agency

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management entered into an agreement with Bailey's Recycling Group that will allow it to resume tire recycling operations under strict conditions as it works to eliminate its illegal tire pile.

Earlier this month the IDEM obtained a restraining order in Superior Court to immediately stop the operators from accepting additional tires and continuing to violate Indiana environmental laws and rules at their facility in South Bend, Ind. The facility was formerly known as Michael's Tire Recycling.

The agreement requires Bailey's to remove all tires and tire material within 240 days and give IDEM progress reports every two weeks. If the facility follows that directive, it may remain open, accepting one new waste tire for every two that it properly removes. But at the end of the 240 days, the facility is to be free of tires and tire materials.

The agreement worked out with Baileys, includes the following:

* Process and ship out two passenger tire equivalents for every new one accepted

* Process all incoming waste tires within 24 hours of receipt

* Separate all incoming processed waste tire material from existing waste material so that the two do not mix

* Include the newly processed waste tires into the required two PTEs that are disposed from the site

* Remove and dispose of existing waste tires and altered waste tires at a rate of 30 percent within 80 days, another 30 percent within 160 days and the remaining 40 percent within 240 days of the order

* Maintain fire-extinguishing equipment and take all actions to prevent and control mosquitoes at the site within 10 days of the order

* Submit to IDEM within 10 days written documentation of the prices Bailey's charges for all waste tires transported to, processed and stored at the site, in two-week intervals

* Provide within 10 days documentation of the prices charged by Bailey's to remove all waste tires and material to a proper IDEM-approved facility, in two-week intervals

* Provide within two weeks to IDEM copies of all disposal receipts and waste manifests, in two-week intervals

* Provide IDEM with copies of all current contracts for transporting waste tires and altered waste tires intended to be sold for re-use

* Provide IDEM written documentation of the planned destination/disposal facilities for waste tire material (Disposal must be conducted only at an IDEM-approved facility to accept waste tire material)