Assiniboia Rubber Recyclers Inc. purchased the assets of Prairie Rubber Corp., which shut down in the town in April. Bob Himbeault, one of the directors of the company, said a local group of shareholders in Prairie Rubber made arrangements to purchase the plant.
"We worked hard to bring this plant to Assiniboia (Saskatchewan) so we weren't going to let it just shut forever," Himbeault said.
Prairie Rubber opened in Assiniboia in 2000 and processed scrap tires into crumb rubber. At the time of its closure, Prairie Rubber's general manager had said the company had suffered losses of roughly $2 million annually for the past few years.
The company has been looking for a $1 increase to the consumer tire recycling fee, a $3.50 charge included on the purchase of every new tire in the province. The fee is managed by the Saskatchewan Scrap Tire Corp., a non-profit body overseen by Saskatchewan Environment that manages tire recycling in the province.
Prairie Rubber and Shercom Industries in Saskatoon, the two tire processors in the province, received $1.50 of the fee. SSTC had granted a temporary 50-cent increase to the processors' incentive while a permanent recycling fee increase was researched, but it wasn't enough for Prairie Rubber to continue.
When asked whether Assiniboia Rubber Recyclers would also need a fee increase, Himbeault said the company doesn't have an issue with the fee structure.
"We feel we can operate under the current fee structure," he said.
Theresa McQuoid, executive director of SSTC, said a permanent recycling fee increase is still being researched. While the Assiniboia plant was closed, SSTC was shipping some of its spare tires to out-of-province processors, which McQuoid said will continue for the time being.
"At some point we will be considering redirection of tires to the Saskatchewan facilities but it won't happen tomorrow. I can see it happening in the next number of months, but until the processors get all of their site inventory under control, we don't want to burden them," McQuoid said. The Leader-Post (Regina)
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